David
I gave up on my first attempt at The Passage several years ago because of the sheer number of indistinguishable characters. After seeing so many rave reviews, I gave it another shot this year and ultimately enjoyed it — though my original issue never fully went away.
I’ve just finished The Twelve, and I nearly abandoned this one as well. There are simply too many characters, timelines, and geographically scattered survivor groups that begin to blur together. I often found myself unsure who was alive, dead, or… undead. Add in callbacks to minor characters introduced 300 pages earlier, and it became more exhausting than immersive.
That said, there are genuinely exciting sequences and moments of high tension. For me, though, they didn’t quite justify the nearly 600-page sprawl.
Now I’m left deciding whether to tackle The City of Mirrors — or call it a trilogy and a day.
I gave up on my first attempt at The Passage several years ago because of the sheer number of indistinguishable characters. After seeing so many rave reviews, I gave it another shot this year and ultimately enjoyed it — though my original issue never fully went away.
I’ve just finished The Twelve, and I nearly abandoned this one as well. There are simply too many characters, timelines, and geographically scattered survivor groups that begin to blur together. I often found myself unsure who was alive, dead, or… undead. Add in callbacks to minor characters introduced 300 pages earlier, and it became more exhausting than immersive.
That said, there are genuinely exciting sequences and moments of high tension. For me, though, they didn’t quite justify the nearly 600-page sprawl.
Now I’m left deciding whether to tackle The City of Mirrors — or call it a trilogy and a day.