Jason

Good story, but over long

I'll start by admitting that I don't read a lot of books. Maybe that reflects in my review of this.
I found myself completely engrossed for about the first half of this book. After that it all just started dragging for me. Tim is undoubtedly a very talented writer, but I found this book getting too bogged down in overly descriptive text. There's only so many times you want to read about what a fog looks like. I feel this book could have trimmed a good 100 pages and would have been much more dramatic for it.
That said, I did very much enjoy the story and the character interaction.

Camp 80's horror

Go into this book knowing that it's a camp 80's style horror complete with sex (graphic) and gore, and you'll have a great time with it.
A little too much use of parentheses for my liking (including parentheses WITHIN parentheses), but if you leave your brain at the door, this is a lot of fun.
Just remember to pick your brain back up before you leave or it's likely to get eaten!

Loved the first book, and this one is just as enthralling. I'm loving Michael Bray's style and there's some truly disturbing imagery in this book.
Takes a lot to actually get me to wince - especially from a book - but there were several moments in this that made me let out a mildly (and very manly) shriek.
This was a perfect and very logical continuation of the first book and I look forward to reading the conclusion!

I love this series. It's the first series I've read in which I was truly looking forward to reading the next part. What I love also is while each book continues an overall story, all of the books are very much a self contained chapter. There's no cliff hanger gimmicks to make to buy the next book.
What makes you buy the next book is fantastic storytelling and an impeccable ability for Michael Bray to build imagery in your mind. Some of it quite horrific.
Every one of these books had elements that really got into my head.
This final piece of the puzzle brings everything to a satisfying and well crafted conclusion. It scared me, upset me, shocked me, made me laugh and made me shed man tears (these are the type we feel but refuse to let spill - it's a thing).
These are the first books I've read by Michael, and he's probably the first author that I've come across that makes me want to actively seek out more of his books. Only “It” by Stephen King has held my attention and awe to the level these books have.
God! Does this mean I've become a fan of an Author?
I think it does.

Love love love.

This was a good little ghost story. A short, quick read but nicely paced and well constructed. I didn't think a “found footage” style would work in print, but this was done very well.
I must admit I would have liked it to go on a little longer, but that's hardly a criticism. More of a, “I enjoyed it enough to want more”.

This was a simple, quick read with good characters.
It was a bit of a mixed bag for me with several sections that were tense and well written, and others that felt somewhat amateurish. I don't mean that as an insult to the author, but more of an indication of sections that pulled me out of the story because of a writing style that seemed to change in quality. More often than not during dialogue or an overuse of metaphors that made it feel like I was being spoon fed. I did note however that these occured more often earlier in the book.
Then there were other sections that were so gloriously descriptive and gruesome that had me feeling everything.
Overall this fell short of being great and was more of a popcorn read for me.

Dark, depressing, captivating and atmospheric. This was a fantastic read from start to finish. There are some very dark themes in this book, but all handled in aid of the story, not just for the shock factor.
Brilliantly paced journey into grief, the psychological damage it can do to you, and the vulnerability it leaves you with. All neatly wrapped up in a damn fine horror novel.
I absolutely loved this and will be looking for more from this author.

It's rare for me to discover a new author that compels me to seek more and more of their work.
I first discovered Ross Jeffery a few months ago when “The Devils Pocketbook” was recommended to me.
I was immediately struck by the absolute clarity in his writing and story direction. It made every page seep into me almost effortlessly. Like I wasn't even reading.
I followed this up almost immediately with Juniper. Yet again the consistency and ease of which his words found their way into my mind struck me, so I immediately followed up with Tome.
Dare I say it, this one surpassed the others.

I don't really need to talk about the book. It's covered in every other review. But you will feel the darkness here because it's rooted in the people. People that we see every day on the news but try to pretend don't exist. The supernatural elements of this book simply use those people as a conduit, not really doing anything but removing the shackles that usually stop them from carrying out the depraved thoughts in their own mind.
The imagery that Jeffery builds through his words is palpable. I struggle to develop pictures of scenes in my mind when reading, but again, Jeffery made this effortless to me, and I can visualise Juniper Correctional with insane clarity..

In 3 books, Jeffery has raised himself into the list of my favourite authors, alongside King and Blake Crouch.

Please...don't stop writing.

I chose to wait until I finished the entire series before writing a review.
And this is a series review, mor than a book review.

I took on the task in March of last year to get through the entire series, and I only took a break here and there with a few other books as a breather.
This is a strange one to review as I am a huge King fan, but found this series extremely uneven. I'd even venture to say that I think he was stoned when he wrote some of this.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. And I became VERY connected to the characters. I just thought some of the ideas were a little too cutesy (Blaine and the riddles for example - which took up WAAAY too much of an entire book).
Also, I love that King is able to essentially come up with new languages and weave them into the story, but I feel he tried to get too clever sometimes, losing the flow of the words and therefore losing my interest and focus in places.

I definitely found the earlier books much stronger than the later books. With Songs of Susannah being by far my least favourite.
What makes this hard is that through the entirety of this, I discovered some of King's best and also worst writing. So this leaves me conflicted.

I thought the ending was actually perfect. I honestly couldn't see anything different for it, and it brilliantly played into Roland's self indulgent need to find the tower at all costs.

But I find myself fondly looking back on the earlier books, more so than enjoying the more recent ones.
Who knows. Maybe that's nostalgia playing a part in it. Which in itself is a beautiful thing.

Epic and original

Some minor spoilers follow. Nothing major.
The premise behind this had me hooked from the start. Such an original and clever concept that had me champing at the bit to find out how it would all play out...
...until about half way through when it became more of a traditional post apocalyptic story with warring factions etc... At this stage I was beginning to tire as it seemed to stray from what made it so enjoyable to me. This was also a very long read so it felt at the time that these sections were unnecessary filler...
...until later in the book when you realise that this section is actually essential to the final outcome in what becomes a very circular tale.
The ending is as beautiful as it is tragic, and made me forgive the middle section of the book.
This one will stay with me for some time.

A fantastic debut.

This was a well written story and a good premise. Character development was also very good, but for whatever reason by about 75% of the way through I was looking forward to reading a new book.
I can't put my finger on why I lost interest in this. The quality was solid all the way through, but eventually I just didn't care that much how it ended.

Name dropping does not make a good book

I'm a child of the 80's. I loved the 80's. I want to go back there.
So like every other tragic fan of that era I thought this book was tailor made for me.
Unfortunately this was the closest I've ever come to a DNF. 80% of this was not a story. It was name dropping for the sake of it. For the first half of this book I felt like I was sitting in a room with someone simply reading through a list of 80's movies, TV shows, songs and fictional characters. That's it. That's all it was. It was 20% story, and 80% filler. And the 20% story was filled with overly convenient and simplistic plot devices.
“Oh let's pull this thing out of my inventory that was never mentioned anywhere else in the the book which just happens to be the exact thing I need to progress further!”
Sorry, but I'm angry. Because so many people love this book. So many people I respect. But I can't help but think they all got so caught up in the reminiscing that they didn't notice that this is a terrible story.
I look forward to seeing what Spielberg does with the movie, because if anyone can make something good out of this, he can. And he's the perfect person to turn this into what it should have been.

Tough to review. There's no doubt this is a fantastic book. Beautifully written, palpable characters, fantastic backdrop. I can see why it's recieved so many accolades.
But all that said, I didn't find it enjoyable to read.
It took a while to figure out why. Even while reading it I'm thinking to myself “This is so good”, but at the same time wondering why I'm bored and looking forward to the next book.
Finally I think I nailed it. Nothing really happens. It's all set in amongst the background of a lot happening, but other than hearing about it, there's not much that really goes on with the characters that so much time has been spent making us love.
This feels like all the parts of a fantastic book that happen BETWEEN the major plot points.
I spent the majority of this book waiting for something to happen, and when it doesn't it feels like there no payoff for the time invested in these characters.
Maybe this is what literary fiction is about. I can see why people may like it. It's life through the eyes of others.
But books are a form of entertainment. This wasn't entertaining to me, and I couldn't wait to start a new book.

There's been much discussion about the lack of quotation marks. To be honest it only takes a few pages to become accustomed to, and this with the writing style creates a beautiful fluidity in the dialogue. I'm really bummed that the final part has yet to be released as I just gobbled up the first two.

I'm leaving a short written review purely to explain my rating. This was actually a very good book. Well written, obviously well researched and planned, and with well fleshed out characters.
The setting and the story were great.
But for some reason I just didn't connect with it the way I thought I would. I honestly can't explain why. Everything is there, it just wasn't for me.
So for enjoyment, this was actually more of a 2.5,
Yet I still find myself wanting to read the next book in this series at some point.
Figure that out.

Good story, but over long

I'll start by admitting that I don't read a lot of books. Maybe that reflects in my review of this.
I found myself completely engrossed for about the first half of this book. After that it all just started dragging for me. Tim is undoubtedly a very talented writer, but I found this book getting too bogged down in overly descriptive text. There's only so many times you want to read about what a fog looks like. I feel this book could have trimmed a good 100 pages and would have been much more dramatic for it.
That said, I did very much enjoy the story and the character interaction.

The prologue and first few chapters are some of the most intense storytelling I've ever read. The emotion and graphic nature of it was palpable.
After this it became a little more by the numbers, but still a fantastic read.
This was my first Joe Hart book and I'll certainly be seeking out more. Very talented writer, and despite the intensity of the early chapters not filtering all the way through the book, this still goes down as one of my favourites.

Loved the first book, and this one is just as enthralling. I'm loving Michael Bray's style and there's some truly disturbing imagery in this book.
Takes a lot to actually get me to wince - especially from a book - but there were several moments in this that made me let out a mildly (and very manly) shriek.
This was a perfect and very logical continuation of the first book and I look forward to reading the conclusion!

Great book!

Well developed characters, fantastic pacing and thought provoking.
One of the first real page turners for me for some time.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this series progresses.
The only negative - and I agree with another reviewer - is the swapping from first name to last name for the same characters without the book introducing them with both names originally. This makes it confusing in some early parts.

I love this series. It's the first series I've read in which I was truly looking forward to reading the next part. What I love also is while each book continues an overall story, all of the books are very much a self contained chapter. There's no cliff hanger gimmicks to make to buy the next book.
What makes you buy the next book is fantastic storytelling and an impeccable ability for Michael Bray to build imagery in your mind. Some of it quite horrific.
Every one of these books had elements that really got into my head.
This final piece of the puzzle brings everything to a satisfying and well crafted conclusion. It scared me, upset me, shocked me, made me laugh and made me shed man tears (these are the type we feel but refuse to let spill - it's a thing).
These are the first books I've read by Michael, and he's probably the first author that I've come across that makes me want to actively seek out more of his books. Only “It” by Stephen King has held my attention and awe to the level these books have.
God! Does this mean I've become a fan of an Author?
I think it does.

Love love love.