My intentions were to post something literary, maybe an award winner, for my first review. You know, show off a little bit with my taste and sophistication. Instead, I'm reviewing a book that won't win the Pulitzer but was hard to put down: The Three by Sarah Lotz.
Title: The Three
Author: Sarah Lotz
Star rating: 3 out of 5
Buy, Borrow, Skip: Borrow
Bonus endorsment: "Hard to put down and vastly entertaining." --Stephen King
It starts on what becomes known as Black Thursday, a day when four airplanes around the world go down, killing everyone on board except for a single child from three separate crashes. These miracle children become known (at least at first) as The Three. Great premise, right? It hooked me, at any rate.
The novel is not set up as your average narrative. We start with a rather chilling section entitled How It Begins, a straightforward third-person account of the crash of one of the planes in Japan. From there, we move into a book-within-a-book written by Elspeth Martin. Martin presents this book as a series of transcripts from voice and printed conversations or interviews, as well as blogs, newspaper articles, and other sources. It reminded me a bit of the technique Max Brooks used in World War Z, but this time we do revisit some of the characters providing us with the storyline. There's even an appendix to a later edition of Elspeth Martin's book, a long email detailing the fallout from the book's publication and her further investigations into Black Thursday. And then, How It Ends, just to tie it all back together.
As a whole, the technique worked for me. I can see how it would be jarring for some who enjoy a traditional, linear storyline, but I found it engaging and unusual. It kept me interested and reading, just to see how she'd proceed from the previous section. She also handles her characters with a deft touch. Juggling this many narrators can not be an easy task, but she keeps each one distinct and gives the reader enough information to connect with him/her.
But really, it's the atmosphere that keeps things going. Lotz skillfully ups the suspense as the novel goes on, keeping us wondering about The Three--are they just normal kids? aliens? the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? or something else altogether?--by dropping hints at every turn that could be interpreted any number of ways. By the end, I was thoroughly creeped out by at least two of The Three without knowing if there were any basis for it or not. Just great writing.
(Click "Read More" only if you want to read about the end. It's not too terribly spoiler-y, but hey ...)
Title: The Three
Author: Sarah Lotz
Star rating: 3 out of 5
Buy, Borrow, Skip: Borrow
Bonus endorsment: "Hard to put down and vastly entertaining." --Stephen King
It starts on what becomes known as Black Thursday, a day when four airplanes around the world go down, killing everyone on board except for a single child from three separate crashes. These miracle children become known (at least at first) as The Three. Great premise, right? It hooked me, at any rate.
The novel is not set up as your average narrative. We start with a rather chilling section entitled How It Begins, a straightforward third-person account of the crash of one of the planes in Japan. From there, we move into a book-within-a-book written by Elspeth Martin. Martin presents this book as a series of transcripts from voice and printed conversations or interviews, as well as blogs, newspaper articles, and other sources. It reminded me a bit of the technique Max Brooks used in World War Z, but this time we do revisit some of the characters providing us with the storyline. There's even an appendix to a later edition of Elspeth Martin's book, a long email detailing the fallout from the book's publication and her further investigations into Black Thursday. And then, How It Ends, just to tie it all back together.
As a whole, the technique worked for me. I can see how it would be jarring for some who enjoy a traditional, linear storyline, but I found it engaging and unusual. It kept me interested and reading, just to see how she'd proceed from the previous section. She also handles her characters with a deft touch. Juggling this many narrators can not be an easy task, but she keeps each one distinct and gives the reader enough information to connect with him/her.
But really, it's the atmosphere that keeps things going. Lotz skillfully ups the suspense as the novel goes on, keeping us wondering about The Three--are they just normal kids? aliens? the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? or something else altogether?--by dropping hints at every turn that could be interpreted any number of ways. By the end, I was thoroughly creeped out by at least two of The Three without knowing if there were any basis for it or not. Just great writing.
(Click "Read More" only if you want to read about the end. It's not too terribly spoiler-y, but hey ...)
The end. I was not absolutely satisfied with where Lotz took the novel, but it works. I was hoping for a bit more ambiguity: part of the reason I liked it so much, found it as creepy as I did, was I was constantly wondering about the nature of those kids. Had they changed? Was there something other about them not explainable by PTSD or grief? Lotz gives us an answer to those questions, and I wonder if I would've enjoyed the whole more if she hadn't.