Review | The Passage by Justin Cronin

Amy Harper Bellafonte is a girl who has had a hard life. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is questioning whether the job he’s been tasked with has finally crossed a line. Anthony Carter is on Death Row, wondering where his life went wrong. Sister Lacey has escaped a dark past, only to be pulled back in. All of them are on different paths but wind up intertwined with each other as they face a nightmare beyond their wildest dreams.

And when the nightmare is over, the world reforms into something new. And for Peter, Theo, Alicia and so many others, the world that they know, terrible as it is, may soon come to an end.

We live, we die. Somewhere along the way, if we’re lucky, we may find someone to help lighten the load.

The Passage has been hyped beyond belief but I never got around to reading it. I have to admit, the size of my paperback tome clocking at 963 pages scared me! When I saw that there’s a new tv series based on the book and it looks super interesting, I finally decided to tackle the book. In the end, it took me over a week to finish this monster and it felt like an accomplishment when I did.

The start of the book is great. I quickly became invested in the characters, especially Amy and Agent Wolgast, both with sad lives and clearly needing what the other can provide. I was also intrigued with Project Noah and the way they’re using death row prisoners for their own purposes. It’s messed up, especially when the people behind the project decides to target a little girl as their next subject. Everyone’s set for a collision course, and the whole agent-and-kid on the run plot kept my attention. I wouldn’t mind reading an entire book about that, with a background of a possible viral attack and the end of the world.

Then the story moves forward almost a hundred years into the future. There’s a brief interlude where the history of the world is summarised in one journal entry. Suddenly we now find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic world with different rules, separate setting and a whole cast of new characters. I love reading about post-apocalyptic worlds but we had already reached the moment where the virals are spreading over the world. It kind of feels like a cheat to jump through time to when the virals are already part of life.

My problem with the book’s middle part is that it’s too long. I honestly didn’t need to read about technical stuff like how they were supposed to source for electricity. There’s a lot of drama between the characters but since I barely know who they are, it was hard to care. All the secret loves and crushes are variations of other stories I’ve read before. And there aren’t any levity between the characters so at times it felt like I was reading a textbook.

The last third of the book picks up action-wise. I thought the idea of different sets of communities reacting to the virals was interesting but the story moves pretty fast by now. Some scenes are again summarised through journal entries so we never get fully immersed in the action. For a horror book, I have to say the scares are pretty low. I read the book knowing there isn’t an answer, because there are two more books in the series. I understand why many people love this book. The world constructed is detailed and there are plenty of characters to root for. I think I’ll bow out from the rest of the series though and catch the tv show instead.

About the author: Justin Cronin

Photo by Saksham Gangwar