Book of the Month - The Passage

The Passage by Justin Cronin

There aren't too many 766-page books that I can read in less than two weeks. As much as I love books, my leisure reading over the course of a day amounts to 15 minutes at lunch and 5 minutes before I fall asleep at night.

But Justin Cronin's 2010 sci-fi novel, The Passage, simply begs to be devoured. I was hooked by the second page, and enthralled by the time I got to the second chapter. It's the kind of book that you don't want to know too much about before you get started, so I will just say this: it's a vampire story, but it's nothing like the bestselling vampire titles you've seen recently. It's a bit like Stephen King's The Stand, and it certainly reminded me of Matherson's I Am Legend,but unlike these The Passage is absolutely impossible to put down. It will keep you up at night and it might just creep you out.

You can cram a lot of characters and situations into 766 pages, and Cronin does that. But I never got bored of any characters; if anything, I wish I'd read it a more slowly so I could have followed the relationships and personalities a little better. The only criticisms I could come up with are nit-picky so I won't even mention them here. The writing is frequently beautiful, such that the book never feels like the breezy, hyper-readable vampire yarn it really is. Mind you, I've nothing against breezy, hyper-readable vampire yarns. Cheers to Justin Cronin for writing one that was such a joy to read. LO