Good premise, unengaging execution.

After the starting sequence of Metro 2033, I was hoping for, almost expecting, an adventure, because the world had ended and people lived in metro stations in order to survive, and this boy suddenly had an important task to do, the success of which could very well help stop the advance of the “blacks”, these monsters, who kept attacking the denizens of the metro stations. And that was the first red flag — really? The villains are “blacks”? Very original and anti-racist, Glukhovsky. Full marks.
But well, I guess I was feeling charitable, so I decided to give the guy a chance. (hint: I really shouldn’t have)
So, this guy, our main character, name of Artyom (please don’t start me on this; there are plenty of awesome Russian names he could have chosen from)— who was by no means a stellar example of what a good lead ought to be — for me, that means diverse, memorable and relatable). So, Artyom met this other guy called Hunter (how original), who tasked Artyom with carrying news of Hunter’s fate, should he not return from his own quest (coincidentally, the same quest I had been hoping to read about).
First of all, the condition for the beginning of Artyom’s own quest was for Hunter to not return for two days, and I’m not convinced it was met, because the next night Artyom went to work and the opportunity to begin his travels fell right into his lap — a day early. (I could be wrong about this, but the notes I took while reading dictate it happened as I said, and I don’t actually care enough to go back and listen through the first chapters again to make sure, so take this particular piece with a grain of salt.) At any rate, by my count, Artyom ought to have waited another day before starting, because what if Hunter actually returned?
But yeah, whatever, because plot-no-jutsu. And so, off our hero goes on his quest, where he passes through every known station, and meets a weird cast of side characters along the way to the next station, where they fall off the face of the Earth, either by way of getting killed, or just by stepping off stage, never to be seen again.
Also, info dumps. Those were there. Sure, we had to be given lots of information, but there’s ways for that to happen more or less painlessly; only they weren’t utilised.
This book was supposedly a dystopia with monsters, and people supposedly had special abilities. Well, there were monsters, though I never saw any the first 70% of the book, unless you count the so-called fascists at one of the stations. And the only times someone exhibited any sort of so-called ability, Artyom could have just as well been dreaming or hallucinating.
But my biggest gripe with this book is that there is no.female.representation.at.ALL. NONE.
What are women then, Glukhovsky? Chopped liver?
I’m not saying “put in some steamy apocalyptic romance”. F#ck no. All I’m saying is, women can fight the good fight just as well as men can. So why not show it?
And speaking of showing, there was far too little of that in this book, and far too much telling. I’m told it’s supposed to make my blood run cold or something, apparently it was supposed to be so scary. It wasn’t. I breezed straight through Artyom getting tortured by the fascists, and the bit where he was cleaning toilets almost put me to sleep. The little bit in the Great Library left me unmoved too. I fail to see what people see when they praise this for being so mind-bending or horrifying.
For comparison, I once tried reading King, and that was so blood-curdlingly unsettling for me, I never finished the book, nor did I ever try reading another one. This here wasn’t scary. It was too busy telling me to be scared to achieve much of anything.

This book needed 1/4 less Charlie and 1/4 more Eve. That would've equaled +1 star, me thinks.

Моето копие е трето издание от 2015 година, но в ГР липсва