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desiree930 's review for:
The Passengers
by John Marrs
So I didn't like this as much as The One, which takes place in the same world, but I still thought it was a really well-crafted story, at least for the first 3/4 of the book.
It's fast paced and yet still manages to have moments of introspection and comment on topics like the over-reliance of technology in our society.
This is set in a near future Great Britain. Things like brexit are mentioned as having happened 'years ago', but it's vague enough to feel very current, even considering the advanced nature of things like DNA sequencing and driverless cars.
The structure of the book is also similar to The One, where we have a wide cast of character perspectives we're following revolving around one incident/circumstance. At some point, the character narratives weave together into a larger story. I found that, while it worked really well in The One, I wasn't as taken with it in this book. I think it comes down to the fact that I didn't really feel like I knew these people. We're only seeing a snapshot of their lives, flashbacks interspersed with the current action. There wasn't time to get to know any of them, and what we did get to know wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of their character. Libby is probably the only character I would say was developed beyond a surface level, and even she was difficult to connect to.
I also felt like the end was a little underwhelming. At about the 3/4 mark, we get what ends up being the big climax of the book. What we've been building toward for the last couple hundred pages finally happens. The last 1/4 of the book is the aftermath. Not that there aren't any reveals or turns in the story, but it just didn't have the same impact on me that the first part of the book did. Mostly we're just being told the truth about different situations after the fact instead of them being revealed in a more exciting way. The story itself was a good one, but it would've been nice if it hadn't all been thrown into a couple of long, expositional speeches.
Looking back through this review, it may seem like I didn't enjoy it, but I really did, despite the anticlimactic ending.
It's fast paced and yet still manages to have moments of introspection and comment on topics like the over-reliance of technology in our society.
This is set in a near future Great Britain. Things like brexit are mentioned as having happened 'years ago', but it's vague enough to feel very current, even considering the advanced nature of things like DNA sequencing and driverless cars.
The structure of the book is also similar to The One, where we have a wide cast of character perspectives we're following revolving around one incident/circumstance. At some point, the character narratives weave together into a larger story. I found that, while it worked really well in The One, I wasn't as taken with it in this book. I think it comes down to the fact that I didn't really feel like I knew these people. We're only seeing a snapshot of their lives, flashbacks interspersed with the current action. There wasn't time to get to know any of them, and what we did get to know wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of their character. Libby is probably the only character I would say was developed beyond a surface level, and even she was difficult to connect to.
I also felt like the end was a little underwhelming. At about the 3/4 mark, we get what ends up being the big climax of the book. What we've been building toward for the last couple hundred pages finally happens. The last 1/4 of the book is the aftermath. Not that there aren't any reveals or turns in the story, but it just didn't have the same impact on me that the first part of the book did. Mostly we're just being told the truth about different situations after the fact instead of them being revealed in a more exciting way. The story itself was a good one, but it would've been nice if it hadn't all been thrown into a couple of long, expositional speeches.
Looking back through this review, it may seem like I didn't enjoy it, but I really did, despite the anticlimactic ending.