The Passage by Justin Cronin

I wanted to read this book because it had become a tv show (canceled after ten episodes) and was a thick-looking read.

Similarities are up there with The Walking Dead in that you're reading a sustained tale told in the midst of extinction-level catastrophe. It isn't a short read of how humanity overcame the villains and won the day. You are along for the ride as the characters continuously struggle.

There's one HUGE catch.

This first book of three, gives you the up close, and personal origin story. (I felt like playing Halo 3 - "This is how the world ends...") You learn about how everything started out promising but turned fatally wrong. And I was quite invested in the characters. The agent who is tasked with "collecting" the candidates for human trials, the girl who has to grow up much faster than she should.

I'm telling you, I was invested. Cronin writes with such skill that I was all-in. Then "it" happens and the story flips forward 90 some years into the future.


Yes, it is jarring. Yes, it feels like a whole new book.

And then you stick with the new(er) characters and their odyssey is just as engaging and you have to find out what happens next.

Apocalyptic, zombie/vampire, survival, almost video game quality to the entire first book. And I ate it all up. Cronin fleshes out his characters where each one is a unique individual, they are not the cliched cookie-cutter zombie-fodder. When bad things happen, I was upset. When there was victory (however small) I was excited.

I tell you what I felt after reading the final page: satisfied yet looking forward to opening book two.