The Passage
By Justin Cronin
Random House
June 2010
784pp

The Short of It:

If you take only one book on vacation this summer…take this one.

The Rest of It:

*No Spoilers*

I’ve been gushing about this book to everyone I know and the first thing they say is, “I don’t like vampire stories.” To be honest with you, neither do I. However, the vampires in The Passage are not your typical vampires. They are government created super-soldiers gone wrong. Horribly wrong.

What IS typical, is the good vs. evil theme. As readers though, do we ever tire of this? No! We love a good battle and there are plenty of battles fought as these “soldiers” run amok and wreak havoc upon the world as we know it.

Although this book has been compared to Stephen King’s, The Stand, and I did find many similarities between the two novels, I felt that The Passage had a completely different feel to it. It’s a tad more clinical, a bit more mysterious and has more of a futuristic feel to it.

The immense size of this novel has intimidated many readers but don’t let the length fool you. It’s nearly 800 pages but you don’t notice the length at all. Some have mentioned the need for a good editor, that perhaps a few pages could have been shaved off of the final product but honestly, I enjoyed the extra detail and found myself completely absorbed in the world Cronin created.

You may be wondering just how nasty these vamps are. I pictured these creatures as a cross between a human and say…the alien from Aliens. Maybe a tad more bat-like, but definitely something huge and menacing. Yes, there’s a bit of gore as these creatures can be a bit brutal when they do their thing but it wasn’t anything that kept me up at night.

If you like epic novels to sink your teeth into (pun intended), then this might be the book for you. If you enjoy the whole good vs. evil thing, then you will like it more. If you like to feel as if you are in another time and place and that place happens to have creatures with wickedly sharp teeth, then you will love it. I know I did.

If you need a little more convincing, here’s a great BookPage interview with Justin Cronin.

The Passage is book #1 in a trilogy and the next book doesn’t come out until 2012, so read slow.

Source: This review copy was sent to me by the publisher.