Book(1)
I've just finished "From the corner of his eye" from Dan Koontz, and I was quite underwhelmed by it; it's like Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clarke got drunk together and decided to write this travesty of a thriller. I LOVE Stephen King. I appreciate Mary Higgins Clarke. But I regret every second I spent reading that ridiculous novel.
I mean, I will reluctantly say not everything is bad in the book. I like Koontz writing style. There are a few interesting moments. And well that's it. Now here's what I didn't like : first of all, the protagonists have no depths, they are either good or bad. That's something I can accept in YA books, romance or fairy tales, but I need my thrillers characters to be a bit less dualistic. But it's the least of my complains. The biggest one is this : out of 500 pages, at least 200 pages could've been removed. The story drags on, unnecessary characters appear, and you just lose interest in the story. I ended up skimming through a lot of the sub-stories, something I hate doing, but I couldn't let myself waste more time on this book.
Third complain : the ending, man. All this building-up to a Rowling-esque level of ending fail. A complete letdown. Everything unravel at the end, and even then, nothing truly interesting happens.
My fourth and last complain is a matter of personal taste. I felt like there was too much romance towards the end of the book. Ending a book by bringing several couples together is just not satisfying to me, especially when 1) I don't give two shits about the people, so I can't be happy, and 2) those couples come from nowhere, so I can't even be satisfied at them being together. And large age gap is one of my fiction pet peeves. You do not pair up a 24 years old woman with a 50 y/o man. The ending felt very lazy and contrived.
I don't think I'm ever going out of my way to find a DK book again, but if I chanced upon one or were given one, I'd probably read it. The problem, I think, is that critics of DK were quite positive, so I expected too much from him. I won't have that problem next time.
I mean, I will reluctantly say not everything is bad in the book. I like Koontz writing style. There are a few interesting moments. And well that's it. Now here's what I didn't like : first of all, the protagonists have no depths, they are either good or bad. That's something I can accept in YA books, romance or fairy tales, but I need my thrillers characters to be a bit less dualistic. But it's the least of my complains. The biggest one is this : out of 500 pages, at least 200 pages could've been removed. The story drags on, unnecessary characters appear, and you just lose interest in the story. I ended up skimming through a lot of the sub-stories, something I hate doing, but I couldn't let myself waste more time on this book.
Third complain : the ending, man. All this building-up to a Rowling-esque level of ending fail. A complete letdown. Everything unravel at the end, and even then, nothing truly interesting happens.
My fourth and last complain is a matter of personal taste. I felt like there was too much romance towards the end of the book. Ending a book by bringing several couples together is just not satisfying to me, especially when 1) I don't give two shits about the people, so I can't be happy, and 2) those couples come from nowhere, so I can't even be satisfied at them being together. And large age gap is one of my fiction pet peeves. You do not pair up a 24 years old woman with a 50 y/o man. The ending felt very lazy and contrived.
I don't think I'm ever going out of my way to find a DK book again, but if I chanced upon one or were given one, I'd probably read it. The problem, I think, is that critics of DK were quite positive, so I expected too much from him. I won't have that problem next time.