Kathryn Lucas's Reviews > The Passage

Let me start with the pros: The world-building is incredibly well thought out. Yes, the book begins in the near future (which is basically the same thing as the present) and there's no world-building required for that. But after the first 200 pages, you are catapulted forward in time 100 years. Society has had to remake itself, and none of its citizens was even around to experience life as we live it today. This somewhat familiar, yet ultimately alien society is what kept me interested and reading. As a reader, you feel the characters' sense of isolation and you share their curiosity about what exists outside their walled compound. They set out on a quest to answer that question, and you feel it's your quest too.

But there are some serious cons: The biggest is that it takes 200 pages to really get into the heart of the story. In that 200 pages, you're never clear on who the main character is. You jump from one character's experience to another's, getting a lot of backstory for each, only to find out that many of those characters are ultimately just bit players in the plot. Why did I need to know that a janitor in the military compound that is Ground Zero for world destruction is a pedophile? Or that he takes a prescription drug that shrinks his balls? It's great that the author has developed these elaborate backstories for all of his characters, but this isn't material that should have made it into the final draft. Some serious editing was needed here, and that whole opening sequence could easily have been 100 pages, not 200.

And in all this swapping of POVs from different characters, the one character you really crave to know better is never revealed to you. She's in most of the book, from beginning to end, and you NEVER learn who she is as a person. What are her thoughts on what's happened to her? How does she feel about the other characters? Does she have any personality at all? It's simply bizarre to have a character who plays such a major, crucial role in the plot be treated by the author as if she's wallpaper in the room where all the other characters live and breathe. It's hard to buy that the other characters would risk their lives for her when I, as a reader, don't feel I know her well enough to even lend her five bucks.

The last point of irritation is that the book goes on too long. The quest that the main characters go on has resolved, they've made it back "home", and yet the book continues. The only reason for this is to lead into a "shocker" ending to hook you into coming back for the second book in the series. I don't like being manipulated with cliffhanger endings as if I'm reading some kiddie comic book serial. Save the shocker for the beginning of the next book, if it really is necessary to the plot.