Wednesday, January 9, 2013

New Book Wednesday -- The Twelve by Justin Cronin

Monday, I finished reading "The Twelve" by Justin Cronin - the second book in The Passage trilogy.


The storyline started out with our beloved heroine Amy, some five years after the end of The Passage.  It briefly explained the whereabouts of the other characters, then jumped to a few storylines that I found peculiar until later on in the book.  For instance, I didn't understand why I was reading about Lawrence Grey in a situation several weeks after the escape of "the twelve," or why I was reading about the survival of a seemingly random group of people immediately when the viral outbreak began, rather than the time period that Amy and the others were being discussed in.  However, once I read a little further, it all started to make sense, and I even got a few pleasant surprises.

This book was full of just as many suspenseful moments and twists and turns as The Passage.  I loved the building of the characters, especially the growing maturity of Amy.  Throughout the whole book, she never ceased to amaze me.  Also, I think I can even go as far as saying that this book was more chilling than The Passage.  Especially toward the end when Alicia ends up at the Homestead.  The description of her internal conflict is amazing, and the mental picture I had of what she went through actually kept me awake at night.  It's not for the faint at heart.  Even next to Amy, Alicia is hands down the toughest character in the book.  Peter always seems to come out ahead, but I don't think there is any way he could have endured what Alicia did and still be able to fight for humanity.

The ending of the book did not go how I expected.  I may have to go back and read the last couple of chapters again to decide if I liked how it ended.  The Epilogue was amazing, though.  Without spoiling too much, I will say that I think Alicia has a very interesting journey ahead of her in the next book and I really wish I did not have to wait that long to find out what happens!

My next book:  Clash of the Otherworlds by Elle Casey.  I've already read the first book in the series.  I'm starting the second one.  This series follows the War of the Fae series, so it is strongly advised to read those books before tackling this series or else you will have no clue what is going on.

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