Book Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

Summary: 

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.


As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

 
Review: 
I know that everyone is talking about this book and it is generally regarded as the cat's pajamas.  Having heard such great things about it, I dove in, despite my misgivings about the gloom-and-doom summary and the hefty size---769 single -spaced pages, to be exact.

I'm sorry to report that I gave up 72 pages in.  I could tell that this book was going to make me sad, and there is enough sadness in the world without me reading something that adds to it.  That's why this blog is called "I'd So Rather Be Reading!"  I read to be uplifted and entertained, and if that makes me a mindless sap, well, I'm a mindless sap.


I'm sure that The Passage is thrilling, gripping, and satisfying, but it reminded me too much of Cormac McCarthy's The Road (a book which catapults me into a melancholy state every time I think about it almost a year after reading it) and I decided it wasn't for me.

Score:

Did Not Finish