Rating 3: A paranoid unlikable protagonist ruins it for meThriller
Released 2008, 352 pgs
Ryan falls madly in love with Samantha, a woman nine years his junior. She appears to feel the same way and the relationship and all is peachy keen until the day he fears he's having a heart attack and visits the doctor. It turns out he has a heart ailment that may or may not have been caused by poison. He naturally begins to suspect his love of an unthinkable betrayal. Ugh, as if having a deadly heart condition wasn't enough of a worry!
Ryan's nosy search into Samantha's past gets him thinking about all sorts of conspiracies involving her mother, some death doctor and Samantha's deceased twin sister. This paranoia bit really maddened me. Instead of talking with Samantha, the supposed love of his life, about any of this he decides to do it all on his own and keep it from her even after he's decided she's not a money grubbing murderess. At this point, I don't like this guy much at all. Koontz spends a huge amount of time describing Ryan's tedious, spoiled lifestyle when he should have been developing him into a likable character.
Ryan ends up needing a heart transplant (and here I begin to hope maybe it'll improve his emotional handling of his lover), gets one and the book then skips an entire year. Now he's estranged from Samantha, apparently the new heart didn't help, and is being stalked by a young woman who claims his heart belongs to her. His paranoia sets in again and the rest of the book is spent watching him chase down this new plot centered around his new heart.
This book will not go down as my favorite Koontz novel because it annoyed me too much. Ryan was such a spoiled, pampered, egotistic, opinionated priss (especially when it came to his own flawed parents) that it was hard to stomach at times. After reading the ending I figure Koontz did this to prove a point but honestly if I weren't listening to it on audio I would've put it down and never picked it up again.
Yeah, there are some Koontz books that I love and can't put down- Odd Thomas is one of my all time favorite characters, but I didn't like this book at all. He's very hit or miss with me.
ReplyDeleteI keep reading him because he wrote things like Odd Thomas, Watchers, Strangers. Those are some of my favorite books but then he goes and writes a stinker like this. Ah well, I guess when you write so many books they can't all be amazing.
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