The Twelve

It was good. I think my enjoyment suffered a bit because I had forgotten so much of what happened in the first book. There were a couple of reveals that didn't do much for me because I forgot relationships between the people or the backstory of a character.


Still a good read in its own right. I had a hunch at how it would end and I didn't miss by much. I'll plan to re-read the first two before I start the third. I've got plenty of time on that score so I'm not worried.

“Where to?” Danny asked. No one had an answer. “I don't think it matters,” Pastor Don said.

It didn't. They spent the night in Valley Forge park, sleeping on the ground by the bus, then headed south, staying off the highways. Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina: they kept on going. The journey had acquired its own meaning, independent of any destination. The goal was to move, to keep moving. They were together; that was all that mattered. The bus jostled beneath them on its tired springs. One by one the cities fell, the lights went out. The world was dissolving, taking its stories with it. Soon it would be gone.

This bus of survivors, twelve in sum: they could have continued that way forever. And in a sense, they did. The green fields of summer, the abandoned, time-stilled towns, the forests thick with shadow, the bus endlessly rolling. They were like a vision, they had slipped into eternity, a zone beyond time. There and not there, a presence unseen but felt, like stars in the daytime sky.

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This was a confusing book, Im not going to lie. There were a ton of characters, and so many different story lines happening that it was really difficult to keep it all together. I had to re-read sections and google a lot of things that I had forgotten from The Passage. I think when all three are done and I re-read them again I will understand the little details that escaped me this time. He just had too many thing happening all at once, he was too ambitious and tried to cover too much and just ended up giving us little pieces of each story. I wish that I had gotten more from just the key people and he'd just let others slide off to the side. Or maybe kill some off? Or just stop introducing more people? I don't know, something.
Well written, exciting, but definitely a middle book. Considering it was called The Twelve - you would think they would be around a little more. Anyways, after all that it was still great, which I guess goes to show what a writer Cronin is.