Saturday, March 7, 2015

Review: The Three


The Three
The Three by Sarah Lotz

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I'm torn between giving this book two stars or three. While the overall message was something I agree with, it certainly took a long time getting there.

The basic storyline is that four plane crashes occur on the same day, scattered around the globe, and three children miraculously survive. Their survival becomes fodder for religious wingnuts and conspiracy theorists around the world.

Things I liked:

The epistolary format - Written in the form of interviews, emails, news articles, letters, etc. I've always like this style, but I this time the content was a little slow moving the story along.

The message - I can't say what anyone else got out of it, but what I got out of it basically agrees with some of my strongest beliefs. The masses are easily led by the media, with fear being the strongest emotion that draws people together. There's more, of course, but I don't want to give too much away.

Things I didn't like:

The pacing - It dragged. I kept reading because I thought, mistakenly, that surely something dramatic would eventually happen. I can imagine that this started out as a top-notch short story or novella that was expanded into a novel. At 476 pages, it's a pretty long horror novel where nothing singularly horrible happens. The horror is in the possibilities and eventualities.

The missed opportunity - This novel could have been a lot more. It could have been truly horrible, but the way I imagine that would preclude the epistolary format, probably. I imagine it with a bit of backstory, more action in the present, and moving further into the future. That's a story I would love to read.

I did finish it, but I wish I had spent those 476 pages on something else.







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2 comments:

  1. I was really looking forward to reading this book but was very disappointed when I did start reading it. I didn't even finish it, a rarity for me!

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  2. If I were not trying to get through a Goodreads Choice Awards Challenge in one of my Goodreads groups, I wouldn't have finished it. I need to read 10 nominees in each category (or at least the categories I like).

    A book in hand, you know!

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