I’m not entirely sure where to start this review. I guess I’ll start at the beginning, and how I got into reading this book. I’m one of those people who sees that a new movie / TV show is based on a book and wants to immediately read the book. It’s happened so far with: A Handmaid’s Tale, A Wrinkle in Time, The Darkest Minds, and this book. I’m sure there were others too! I always want to read the source material before I see […]
You are entering the Red Zone. Proceed at own risk. When in doubt, run.
I consider myself very lucky that I discovered Justin Cronin’s “The Passage” series only last summer, so the wait for City of Mirrors was much less painful and dramatic than it would have been if I’d been reading in real time: The Passage was published in 2010 and The Twelve in 2012. City of Mirrors came out four weeks ago. That’s not on a George R. R. Martin level, but still could have been a brutal wait for me. Whew! I love this series. I […]
A well-intentioned mess
(2.5 stars) This was a tough book to read and will be a tough review to write. Love is the Drug is a very ambitious book that plots contemporary social issues and a story of developing one’s identity and independence against the background of a bioterrorist pandemic. Ultimately, I think Johnson just had too many ideas here and as a result several threads were underdeveloped and/or incoherent. Emily Bird, who goes by Bird, is from an affluent black family in Washington DC. Her parents are […]
Fast-paced conspiracy thriller — not exactly Bourne quality
The favorite subject of political thriller authors nowadays is high-level global conspirators buried within the US government, and The Dark Hour is unfortunately a rather cliche example. This time the conspirators, who all seem to share a disdain for the common man and an ability to use murder with impunity on behalf of their ill-defined cause, call themselves “The Network,” and they go back generations, are all wealthy, powerful, and nefarious, and guaranteed to get caught in the end. In The Dark Hour, they are […]