Tag Archives: Justin Cronin

Book Review

Review: The City of Mirrors

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The City of Mirrors

The City of Mirrors
By Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books, Hardcover, 9780345505002, May 2016, 624pp.

The Short of It:

There is a lot of pressure for the last book in a trilogy to be great and I feel that Cronin delivered with this one.

The Rest of It:

Long ago (2010), Cronin wrote The Passage and it was a huge hit. People hesitated to call it a “vampire” book because at the time, there were many vampire books out there for the taking. No, it was a little harder to describe.  Genetically modified creatures who happen to suck blood? Yes. That’s a better way to describe them. It was epic. Cronin created this desolate landscape and I loved it.

Then, book #2 came out, The Twelve. Although it certainly built upon the first book, which was mostly about the world going to hell in a hand basket, The Twelve focused on the effect of these “virals” on society as a whole.

This last installment,  is really very different. Cronin takes us back in time. The time before the virals roamed the earth. This surprised me. So much so, that there was one part of the book where I thought my Kindle malfunctioned and I was accidentally reading a different book. Nope, I was just reading about a viral before he was a viral but the back story was so well-developed that it almost felt like a different book to me.

It took me a long time to read this book because there was a tiny part of me that was very worried that it would not live up to the first two books but I worried for nothing. It was entertaining, thoughtfully told and I could tell that Cronin had a thing for some of his characters.

All in all, Cronin delivered and if you enjoy genre mashups of Science Fiction, Thrillers, Horror and the like, then you will enjoy this series.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Book Review

Review: The Twelve

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The Twelve

The Twelve
By Justin Cronin
(Ballantine Books, Hardcover, 9780345504982, October 2012, 592pp.)

The Short of It:

Open the book, read the first few pages and fall into a world quite unlike your own.

The Rest of It:

I’ve been talking about this book for months and could not wait for it to finally hit the shelves. The anticipation of it coming and the feeling I had when it finally appeared on my e-reader made me feel like a kid in a candy store. The only negative was that I was in the middle of a huge project at work so I could not take the day off like I wanted to. In fact, because I am so particular about how I read highly anticipated books, I ended up putting it off until I had some time to really sit down with it.

I finally read it and let me tell you, I was not disappointed. The Twelve is book #2 of The Passage trilogy. What impressed me about The Passage, is that it was a combination of many different genres. Part thriller, part fantasy with vampire-like creatures and an experiment gone wrong. It was the end of the world, and the beginning of another. Well, in The Twelve, the story focuses on what the world has become.

There are some new characters, but lots of familiar ones as well. As good attempts to overcome evil, there is a lot of getting from point A to point B but what I especially enjoyed, what I really savored was the decimated world that Cronin created. I love stories that center around the Apocalypse and as dark as most of these books are, The Twelve was not that. Cronin focuses on the survivors and they are a resilient bunch. Quirky, strong and level-headed. There are no idiots here.

As you can imagine from the title of this trilogy, Cronin takes us on a journey and as we go along for the ride, we get to spend time with these characters, we get to know them and we get to know their weaknesses. This installment was more personal, or it seemed to be as I was reading it.

Now for those of you who are wondering about these “Virals” and their vamp-like tendencies, let me just say that this is not a book about vampires. These creatures are altered but they are thinking beings and their calculated means of attack makes for some entertaining reading. The battle scenes put you right in the action, but they aren’t overly graphic. A lot is left to your imagination which is how I like it.

The Twelve is a solid follow-up to book one. The pacing was just right so the length of the book was not an issue. I can’t wait to see what Cronin dreams up for book three.

Source: Purchased
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.