There’s no reason why I should’ve liked this book, but I did!
I think portal fantasies work well for kids. You know…Narnia. But for adults, it’s hard not to make them cheesy. In this novel (which started as a podcast series) Andrew Klavan owns up to the cheese.
The main character, Austin Lively, gets unaccountably transported from contemporary Los Angeles to a medieval fantasy kingdom. The only thing that connects the two worlds is a mysterious book. I can barely type it without cringing. It sounds so bad. But Klavan miraculously handles it in such a way that it’s not cheesy after all. He writes in first-person, and Austin’s voice is so strong, so crass, so humorous, and so typical of what you’d expect from a Hollywood hack, that the authenticity of it works.
I sped through this novel not because this is my kind of book but because Klavan is a great writer. He writes legitimately good prose. He had me hooked on the unraveling mystery. I cared about the foolish protagonist and wanted him to win despite his many flaws. I became intrigued by the layers of powerful people involved and wondered what it all meant.
Overall, this story is about a young man who is underperforming in every area of life with no incentive to better himself. How do you take someone like that and transform him into a selfless man of stout heart and right belief? From what I know of Klavan, he believes this is an actual problem in society right now. How can men become men again?
This whole book is kind of a content warning. There is a lot of foul language and violence. There are some scary images, but I’m a wuss, and I did fine. There is a fade-to-black sex scene. Women are praised for being traditionally feminine. I have no problem with this because I embrace traditional gender roles, but I can see why modern tastes may find this unpalatable.
My sister-in-law is a huge Terri Blackstock fan, and I remember when she told me about this series after she first read it years ago. The premise is fantastic. One day, electricity doesn’t work. Nothing electric/electronic works. Planes fall out of the sky. Cars die on the road. All the lights go out. City water pumps fail. Generators won’t operate.
What would happen to the average American if an outage like that went on…indefinitely?
The Branning family is going to find out. This book is the first of four, and it focuses primarily on Deni Branning, the oldest daughter in a family of four kids. She is home from college just long enough to plan her wedding to an aspiring politician in D.C. She is on the fast track to a job in broadcast journalism. Her future looks bright. Until the lights go out. She’s stuck at home in Alabama with no way to communicate with her fiancee.
It’s not long before the Brannings find themselves hauling lake water to their house, catching fish to eat, and saving half their trash and composting the rest. Their lives change drastically.
Their quiet, affluent neighborhood is rocked when one of the families is found murdered in their home. Who is the killer? Everyone starts suspecting everyone else, and emotions run high.
This is a Christian novel, so the Brannings have to face the fact that they are Christians in name only, and not practice (both inner and outer). The family chooses to rely on God to provide and guide. The Jesus aspect is tastefully done, not cringey or contrived.
Deni escalates the conflict with some truly dumb choices, which bring her and her family close to peril.
This was a great book—perfect for anyone who enjoys Christian mystery-thriller.
It’s the year 2025, and the bloodshot eyes of the U.S. are glued to screens…
If there is one book genre that I actively avoid, it’s horror. I’ve never read a Stephen King novel in my life. TOO SCARY.
But, when I stumbled across this thriller written under his pen name for Signet, I thought…okay, I can probably do it.
Stephen King is skilled and prolific. I wanted to read him, and this seemed like my best shot of not being scarred for life.
This book was published the year I was born, and it portrays the year 2025—next year, at the time of this review.
In King’s dystopia, the divide between the “haves” and “have nots” in the U.S. has grown into a chasm. Every home is required by law to contain (get this) a Free-Vee. (I have a similarly named app on my television.) Programming is dominated by reality TV—game shows in which people compete in all manner of deadly games in hopes of winning prize money. Contestants are largely comprised of the have-nots.
Our protagonist, Richard, is one such contestant, driven to apply for TV so that he can earn money to buy real medicine for his baby, who is sick with the flu.
Because he’s smart, Richard gets picked for the highest-rated show on TV, The Running Man. Here’s the game: Richard runs for his life, and Hunters try to kill him. He earns money for every hour he stays alive. Stay alive for 30 days, and you win. Nobody has lasted more than eight days.
Sound like the Hunger Games? Yep.
The ending is hauntingly reminiscent of something that ended up happening in real life nearly 20 years after this book rolled off the press.
It’s crazy how many of King’s presentiments have come to pass. The book’s government is irreparably corrupt, and the networks are out for nothing but profit. Today, don’t we feel the same way about Washington and Silicon Valley? People are doping themselves to avoid reality—with entertainment and pot, whatever you can afford. Sound familiar? Everything from the air to the food is polluted. Uncanny.
Content warnings: The entire book is a content warning. There’s foul/offensive language with no filters whatsoever. The book mentions every vice you can imagine, although there’s comparatively little that’s graphically portrayed on the page. There’s no horror, just thrills. Clean? No way. But King knows his Bible, and there are references sprinkled throughout, so there’s that.
Did you know how bad communism was in Romania in ’89?
Me neither! I had no clue.
To think—while I was eating Cheerios and watching Care Bears and playing Barbies, these families were living off of chicken feet and tiny potatoes, with only black-market access to anything remotely Western. They couldn’t even get proper medical care without bribing people with packs of cigarettes. Electricity and heat were hit or miss. Eating a banana was something that only happened in your dreams. All the while, one corrupt family in power was living the high life. Oooh, shudder.
I almost wanted to categorize this as “dystopian.” I feel like this will hit home with a lot of young adults simply because it really happened—and can happen again.
It brings to spine-tingling life what happens when dictators have absolute power. It portrays the human dilemmas that regular people were shouldering under this inhumane regime. There was forced privation. Constant suspicion of neighbors and even family members. Who is listening? Who saw? Will they tell on me? Talk about anxiety! Also, zero hope that things will get better.
The structure of the book is perfect for YA. Short chapters propel you forward. Action and mystery and dilemmas at every turn.
I also loved the back matter, showing photos of people, places, and objects that figure into the story. I’m impressed by the depth of research that Ruta Sepetys put into this book.
