This is the second in The Passage trilogy.

In The Passage, told mostly through emails and journal entries, the world was destroyed by a virus created in a government lab, injected into twelve death row inmates. Breaking free from confinement, these "virals" possess increased strength, power, and infinity, living off human blood. Within months, the world once known is no more. One hundred years later, the Colony survives in a self-imposed compound, protected by the lights that shine throughout night, shielding them from virals. When the batteries keeping the lights on die, the Colony must find another way to survive.

The Twelve picks up where The Passage left off from the first section, immediately following the aftermath in Year Zero. Moving from that year and progressing with certain sections throughout the next 100 years, the original Colony residents (Peter, Michael, Alicia, and Amy) return and the remaining humans in America have created small factions of government and military. Members of the Colony have immersed into the world, several lost. Finding the original group, led by Amy, a young girl who, while her blood is merged with the virus injected into her by the government lab 100 years prior, doesn't live off blood at all. The only indication that she is different is that it has taken her a century to grow from an adolescent to a young woman, but she also possesses a powerful internal way to communicate with the original Twelve virals, and their "Many." Through a violent journey that encompasses a wide range of villains from the original twelve virals, their Many, and from corrupted humans enslaving their own, The Twelve is another fierce installment in the trilogy.

My Thoughts.

First, let me say I read The Passage and I loved it. I couldn't put it down and read it in a few days. The initial jump from events following the aftermath to 100 years later with the Colony was a little jarring at first, but then I settled into it. One note I had from that reading was that I didn't like how Cronin would lead you into a spectacular event and then the section would end. The next page would be the results of that spectacular event, but he never allowed you to dig your heels into what was actually happening as it occurred. That was frustrating, and it happened often enough that I made a note of it, but all in all, it was an incredible story and world, and I loved every page of it.

I picked up The Twelve the day it was released. It was ON. I was ready to pick the amazing story back up and for the first one hundred or so pages, I was enjoying it. I thought.

You know that feeling you have when you pick up a random book because it sounds amazing and right away, you feel unsure, brushing off the disjointed storytelling because you're confident it will clear up soon? There's this nagging suspicion that maybe, the book is part of a series and you might be right in the middle of it? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

The problem is that I obviously knew this was the 2nd in a trilogy. I read the first one and I loved it. I knew the characters, I knew the story.

While I didn't mind that Cronin jumped right into Year Zero and introduced new characters following the aftermath of the virals' exposure to humans, I was disappointed. The Passage concluded with such intensity that I was ready to pick up from there, keeping consistent pace with tension-building and fear. Once I realized that just wasn't going to happen, I settled in with the characters and spent 150 pages with them and it was...interesting. It was decidedly slow, and there was just not a lot of suspense, at least not the way Cronin was so magnificent with building in The Passage, and so I spent the majority of my time fighting this horrible guilt, aware that I wasn't enjoying it. I was confused with the jump in timelines and I had this eerie and remote sense of detachment. It is a clear-cut lesson for me that if the time between installments in a series is more than two years, I simply need to re-read the one that came right before it. Or, at the very least, I need to hop onto Wikipedia and read the Cliff Notes version of the book to remind myself of events and characters. (Which I didn't think of until later.)

Yet even re-reading The Passage, I still would have waffled in confusion. There were too many new characters, and events which jumped all over the place. I spent the majority of my time drifting aimlessly and I even rushed through events in the end. I can't believe I did that.

There were just too many confusing elements, events, new characters that came and went, and timeline switches to be engaging. I missed the mostly epistolary format Cronin used in The Passage. With increased melodrama and shocking soap-opera like moments (Wait, that's really her father? And then someone else found their daughter?!), it just missed the mark for me. Don't get me wrong, I'll still pick up the final installment, but this post serves as a reminder for me to be more on guard. I missed the original universe, the feeling of being swept away into a story, the scary setup of the story, and most especially the refined method of storytelling Cronin previously implemented. This was just a little too scattered for me to really get into. I'm so disappointed to share that.

But, I have no idea what I'm talking about.
As I always say (er, write) in my posts, please remember that there is a reader for every book, and my opinion is simply my own. There are more than enough readers who loved this book. A simple check on Goodreads should give you more insight. After all, it currently has a 4.18 starred review rating, coming from 1,786 readers.

Favorite Characters.

• Alicia. She rocked. Didn't understand the scenes where she was confined, or with Sod, though.
• Ah, the disgusting Guilder. There was a lot of depth to the early introductions of his character and the reasons that clouded his judgement. While the concluding pages of his deterioration were a bit insane, I will recall fondly how villainous and interesting he was in the first half of the book.
• Lila has gone cray-cray. Oh, Lila, you are nuts. But sheesh, you're funny even when it's horrifyingly sad and I think you're awesome.
• Danny. I just love this guy. The determined bus driver who tries to drive everyone to safety. I want to be your friend. If they do end up making the movies for this trilogy, you doggone better be in it.
• Peter and Michael. Equal parts goodness. Loved ya both.

Characters I didn't care about.

• Amy. Sorry, I just wasn't as interested in her tale. Although I did feel the sad points in her interactions with Wolgast. Broke my heart.
• Lore. I just thought she was a little over-sexed and it didn't seem genuine.

Comparisons to The Stand?

I felt bad for Cronin a couple years ago when readers began comparing The Passage trilogy to Stephen King's The Stand. When I first read The Passage in January 2011, I hadn't read King's epic tale, so I couldn't see it. This year, however, I did read The Stand, and yes, I can completely see why there were multiple comparisons. There really are a lot of similarities, and for a few excellent side-by-side references, head on over to Fizzy Thoughts' page. I would also add to her list that Lacey was essentially Mother Abagail from The Stand and that Farmstead in The Passage trilogy is Hemingford Home. If I were to continue to make comparisons, though, I would say that while Cronin has a gift for writing, I much prefer King's "plainspeak." There's just no fluffed up pretty way to spell out that it's a cold day, for example, so in King's world, it just is so damn cold it'll freeze your n1pples off. Know what I'm sayin'?

But, either way, The Twelve, while it didn't work for me, picked the story ball up and carried it for yet another game. I'm still committed to Justin Cronin's trilogy and I will eagerly await the final installment.

Publisher: Ballantine Books, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group
Release Date: 10/16/12
Pages: 568

Others said:
A Bookish Way of Life
The Boston Bibliophile
Chrisbookarama
Fizzy Thoughts
The Guilded Earlobe (audio review)

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book from my local bookstore in Virginia Beach.

About the Author
Born in New England, Justin Cronin is the author of Mary and O'Neil, which won the Pen/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize, and The Summer Guest.  Having earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop, Cronin is now a professor of English at Rice University and lives with his family in Houston, Texas.

Visit the author:

• On the official Passage site
• On Twitter
• On Facebook

This is my final selection for Carl's RIP celebration. For other participants' reviews, please click here.

I knew that downloading The Passage, by Justin Cronin would be the perfect selection to read on my Nook Color for the first time, especially as the size is daunting.  So many incredible events take place throughout this book, that I almost don't know where to start.

The Passage is a sweeping dystopian story that starts out a few years after our current time in a society that is still "normal."  It is FBI Special Agent Wolgast's job to collect identified human test subjects for a secret Army project that has been developed after a virus was uncovered in the jungles of Bolivia that cures illnesses and slows aging - and it could potentially be turned into a weapon of unbelievable proportions.  Soldiers that heal themselves?  It would be a fighting force of unprecedented capabilities.

Wolgast is post-divorce and going through a complete separation of a personal life he once knew.  He is knee-deep in his work with interviewing and convincing the test subjects to agree to be part of the project.  What other choice do they have?  They just happen to be death row inmates, so it's not like they have a better option for their lives.

But one is different.  Amy is a six-year-old girl whose mother is a prostitute -- she is dropped off at the doorstep of a convent and initially the sisters aren't quite sure "what" Amy is.  Wolgast, though, has now been tasked to bring Amy in to be one of these test subjects, and it is appalling to him - after all, Amy is just a little girl.  He realizes that he must do everything he can to protect her.

As Wolgast and Amy hide away in the mountains, as far away as they possibly can, the society that we now know is swiftly destroyed. The problem that no one expected is that the death row test subjects have become advanced super-human creatures, and they eventually break out from their prisons. Now predators roaming America, complete chaos sets in as they rip people apart or turn them into what the test subjects are - virals. A monster of unbelievable strength and quickness, who maintains the human form but is a wild animal in every sense - they communicate by making clicking sounds, they travel in pods of three, and they hide during the day, live at night, and kill. There is nothing human left that can be visibly seen. America is being destroyed from the inside out. The remaining society must survive, but how?

This story isn't just about current life with Wolgast and Amy, though. There. Is. So. Much. More. And one hundred years later, the compound with the last remaining humans in America is protected by floodlights that the virals can't get past. But as time goes on, the batteries supporting the lights are getting weaker and will eventually go out, leaving the compound in darkness.

This is one of the most incredibly engaging stories I've read in quite a while - I was pulled into each character's story and event. The structure is interesting - in one section, it's in third person, and then in the next, the story unfolds through a chain of emails. In other chapters, a full report of what occurred while patrolling the compound wall on watch is detailed, and then later, a diary entry is included, or a newspaper article. It's an absolutely fascinating way to keep the reader engaged in every aspect. There were a few minor issues here and there that I could quibble with, such as pivotal moments that I wish had been revealed to the reader as they actually happened, instead of jumping to the next chapter and reviewing how the characters dealt with these major moments. It happened often enough that I noticed it and was wishing that we instead got a chance to experience these incredible events with the characters as it happened.

Please - don't write this off as a vampire book. Although capturing similar elements to the popularity of vampire culture, it is so not a book about that. In fact, don't even use that word with this book. Instead, it is a post-apocalyptic story, the dystopian culture setting it far apart from anything you've probably ever read. It is a story about religion, survival, and love. Justin Cronin has successfully created an unbelievable journey into an alternate future, one that still encompasses the very basics of humanity and decency, but is also consumed by an ungodly force and power that cripples the existence of the most important thing of all: hope.

What about the audio?  I had a Twitter conversation with the fabulous Posey Sessions regarding her audio experience of the book - I absolutely enjoyed reading each word so I can completely see why the audio book experience may be much tougher to like, simply based on how the book is formatted.  I would personally recommend the printed version versus audio for this book.

When's the next book coming out?  Thank goodness it's going to be part of a trilogy because when that last page hits you, you might freak out that it ended. What a cliffhanger!  My only complaint is that the next book won't come out until 2012.  The Entomology of a Bookworm blog had a fantastic post on how horrible it is to wait for a sequel.

What about a movie?  Rumor has it that Ridley Scott has purchased the rights to turn it into a movie...

About the Author

Born in New England, Justin Cronin is the author of Mary and O'Neil, which won the Pen/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize, and The Summer Guest.  Having earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop, Cronin is now a professor of English at Rice University and lives with his family in Houston, Texas.

- Visit The Passage site by clicking here.

- Follow the author on Twitter by clicking here.

- Oh, yeah - there's even an iPhone app for this.  I downloaded it here because I have to be able to keep up with when the next book is coming out.

Happy Reading,

Coffee and a Book Chick

Happy New Year, everyone!!

And I cannot even believe it!  A last minute trip to see my sister, brother-in-law and niece and nephew this week resulted in the product that I have been drooling over since September!  The Nook!  And I got the new one - the Nook Color!  My sister, the photographer, took the below pictures - visit her at Digital Graces!

Digital Graces

I must admit - I did research on the various options out there, but I really had my heart set on the Nook, primarily because I liked the idea of being able to bring it into a Barnes & Noble store if I had a question on it and I could then talk to a real human being instead of having to mail it out someplace.

Here is the main reason I wanted an electronic device - I travel for work frequently and trust me when I say, The Historian hardcover is no fun to carry around through airport after airport when you're also lugging a carry-on and a briefcase.

But I worried about whether or not I could truly sit still and read from an electronic device and be as satisfied with this form of reading versus the actual feel of book and paper in my hands.  The feel of the pages turning, the smell of the book.  I thought I would hate reading an electronic version.

So I planned to download The Passage if I ever got something like this since I've read more than enough reviews on how fantastic it was. I figured this would be the book that would help initiate me into the world of reading electronically.

I absolutely love it!  The Passage was just the trick to open the doors into this type of reading - and the Nook Color is fantastic!  The colors are wonderful, and if there is a wi-fi available, I can just connect to it and jump onto any site that I want to, so it has a multipurpose function.  It also has a bunch of extras already downloaded such as Pandora and Sudoku - so I don't think I will ever have a problem dealing with my travel again!

*Primary Suggestion

If you are brand new to an electronic device, make sure you download a book that you know will thoroughly engage you.  It wouldn't have been wise for me to download a classic to initiate me into this e-reading world!

I also got a fantastic Nook cover as well with a wonderful quote from Sir Christopher Wren.  "Choose an author as you choose a friend."

So on this New Year's Eve night, I will be celebrating with family and a fabulous book!  I hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year!

Happy Reading,

Coffee and a Book Chick