BOOK REVIEWS Courtesy of Beaverdale Books
Review by Julie Goodrich
‘The Passage’ By Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books
6/8/2010
$27
784 pp
“The Passage” is the big blockbuster book of the summer with good reason. It’s huge, with more than 700 pages filled with plenty of action and great storytelling. Peppered with endearing characters, a surprisingly fast pace and crisp writing, “The Passage” is everything you could want in a summer read.
“The Passage” opens with the sad story of a little girl from Iowa, told in the hauntingly stark prose Justin Cronin does so well. From this short tale, the reader is launched into a near future that is almost too plausible, until a secret government project goes awry. Suddenly, life on Earth is forever altered by the horrific destruction wrought by a science experiment gone wrong. The bulk of the story follows the survivors fight to endure in the post-apocalyptic world. The well-developed characters and their epic journey will easily hook readers, and their voices, served to intensify the action scenes and provided depth, turn a good story into a classic that plenty of people will be rereading.
The book is set to be turned into a movie and has already developed a huge following. With the large page count it may seem like a daunting task, but it is well-worth the effort. It’s rich and complex, but written with a deceptively simple style, full of action but still character driven, and filled with a hearty dose of science. This book can appeal to anyone. Besides, you wouldn’t want to be the only one who hasn’t read it, would you? CV
