2 Book Lovers Reviews
The Twelve
(The Passage Trilogy #2)
By Justin Cronin
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The Twelve, like its predecessor The Passage, was epic in scale. Add the voice of Scott Brick to the Audible and it became biblical in nature. This book pulled me in and never let me go.
When dealing with books of this magnitude, patience is essential. Cronin exposes the lives of more characters than an average-sized book could handle and seamlessly pulls them all together for his grand finale. I felt strong connections with all of his characters. There were many new additions along with some old friends from The Passage.
Cronin’s writing is second to none, his choice of vocabulary perfect. He uses every single nuance available to him within the English language. This makes visualizing every scene easy for the reader; this not only allows the reader to have a perfect picture of the scenes and action, it also adds to the variety of words used, keeping the narration interesting and the reader from getting bored with repetitive descriptions.
With some trilogies the second book is merely a transition from the introduction of the first book to the conclusion of the third. It will fill in a bit of story, has some action and events but its purpose is to get you to book three. The Twelve is a full-on story in its own right. A reader could have jumped right into The Twelve, it fills in the necessary gaps (which is always a good thing to help remind the readers what happened a couple of years ago), and it leaves the reader with a taste to follow to the third. Certainly, a reader would have missed an incredible story by not reading The Passage, and certain parts may have lacked in their gravitas, but it could easily and satisfactorily have worked just the same.
The Twelve was a fantastic read (listen). I relished my time spent with all of Cronin’s characters. This is one author I could read over and over again.
*5 Stars
