Thursday, July 12, 2012

Paul's Review of The Gates

This was Ashley's October 2011 pick...


Yes, I finally read it. Ashley didn't post about it until the end of November, so I don't feel completely bad. Thankfully, I didn't wait a whole year.


Ashley's Pre Reading
Ashley's Review






Title: The Gates
Author: John Connolly
Year Published: 2009



This book has a similar feel to The Hitchhiker's Guide. It is intelligent, witty, and comical. The footnotes, that can be found throughout the book, at first annoyed me. I felt they took me away from the story, but by the end of the book there are far fewer footnotes and I found myself missing them. 


I am glad I read this in less than two days. I don't know if I would have been able to hold out if I had read just a chapter a day. The first half of the book feels so random. Many different characters are introduced who seem to have no relevance to each other. I enjoyed each of their broad background stories, but it seemed too extensive at the time. By the end of the book, all the pieces come together but it was difficult to get there. 


There was just enough hard science mixed with demonology and fantasy/sci-fi. In my head, the visual for this book resembled a 90s movie with bad special effects. 


My favorite part of the book was the characterization of the nicer demons: Nurd, the one under the bed, and the lake monster. I thought they were interesting and well developed.


I would recommend this book for fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide series to read close to Halloween.I give this novel a 3/5. I don't think I will be looking for the sequel anytime soon.


-PAUL



No comments:

Post a Comment