If you like your vamp lit endings all tied up in a neat blood-stained bow, then The Passage might not be your cup of True Blood. On the other hand, if you are sick of the same-o same-o vampire love stories and want something with a bit more true grit, then this might just be the book for you. I am happy to say it was the book for me – albeit a bit too long (again!).
Alert: This is the first part of a trilogy.
I have two big bugbears when it comes to books. Wait, wait, stop the wedding! Where did that word ‘bugbear’ come from? I think my mother-in-law used to say it. It is a word for a bogeyman according to Wikipedia, but is also mean something that is annoying or a pet peeve. I like the word a lot. It is a word that conveys the fact that it refers to something you don’t like but it has softness to it as well, so it isn’t something that you will go to a doctor to get removed. It’s just a little thing that gives you the shits.
Bugbear number one: my old fiend the under-edited novel. Seriously, I can think of 4 chapters in The Passage, just off the top of my head, that didn’t need to be in this story. They didn’t add to the plot, story line or develop the characters. So why does this book have to be 784 pages? It seems to me that novels are going the same way as movies – the longer the better. I like a big meaty book I can spend a bit of time living in. But I could live happily in this book if it was pared down to 500 pages or so. But, hey, it’s my very own bugbear.
Bugbear number two has nothing to do with this book so I will be saving that for another time.
This novel sits on the border between Fantasy Land and that literary nation of many states – Fiction. Now, fantasy readers wear many different hats. Some like Fairy-tale type fantasy books where there is a beginning and a satisfying ending with a moral in between. Some pretend to be intellectuals and have long involved conversations about the meaning of life according to Robert Jordan. I have met each of these. The Passage is a different kettle of fantasy altogether.
This is an intriguing book. It is half vampire fantasy and half adventure thriller novel. The story revolves around a young girl, Amy, an adolescent when it starts and early teens when it ends over 100 years later. A kind of no-life has been imposed upon her for a reason that is not clear. There are people who desperately care about her but they seem to be controlled by either her or another outside source. And there are people who want to use her for some pretty evil reasons. No one who comes in any kind of contact with her is ever the same. Sometimes they do everything they can to rescue her and sometimes they kill themselves. It’s a little confusing here but it is a testament to Cronin’s fine writing skills that it does not seem very odd at all, in the book.
The other characters in the book are interesting individuals but they are all just playing their parts in the story of Amy. They are driven by forces that have been set in place long ago but they are totally unaware of them. The beginning of the book is set in current time and is quite disturbing due to the fact that ‘it could happen!” Yes, I know that it won’t happen, that it couldn’t happen and you squints out there will explain it all to us later. But, ‘it could happen!” This part of the story comes to its conclusion and then the timeline skips to a place 100 years or so into the future. Life is completely different due to a catastrophe of epic proportions. But the people alive now have never known any other life.
There are problems in this time period though, that have no solutions, like long-term battery life slowly dying, food sources for both sides are dwindling and dissatisfaction of the human condition setting in. I don’t want to give too much away but there is a definite ‘us versus them’ quandary in this novel. Humans v Virals. The 12 v the One. Love v Duty.
All in all this is a thoughtful novel about the human condition, about the thoughtlessness of the advance of technology, about loyalty, courage, faith and hope. It is also a Vampire Story, which makes it all a lot more fun than just a story about all that other stuff. If you are drawn to doomsday sagas with heroes and villains, love stories and triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity then read this book.
Happy Reading, Rhonda
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