The Twelve

Y'know, the longer time goes by, the more I hate this book. So, now it is down to one star. Sometimes it takes a while to realize how much you don't like something. Or hate it. I apparently hated this. I think the thing that threw me over the edge was Alicia's rape.


Spoilers, because I'm too bored not to. edit ACTUALLY, not only are there spoilers, but I realized as I typed how HOSTILE I was to a particular plot twist that was wholly unnecessary, pointless, and aggravatingly trite. And utterly despicable.

Masochism. Sometimes, it happens to me with books and movies. And since I read the first bomb, I decided to read the second. It's pretty much the same dreck. Cronin isn't a horrible writer, but he's not great either. And we have lots of the same dullness and pointlessness that marked the first book. Really, I feel like it could have been half the length. Or just skip book 2 altogether, because it really is quite pointless.

Amy and Peter's romance is predictably bland. Sara is still alive. Of course, she has a very happy ending with Hollis and her improbably alive child. Lots of improbable coincidences happen to get her there. And lots of improbable coincidences happen to everyone else too.

Oh, we learn about Alicia's parents. Her mom is eighteen and knocked up by a guy twice her age, in the middle of the Viral Apocalypse. Yawn.

We learn more about Grey (one of the only interesting characters from book 1, along with Carter, who gets a raw deal in these novels), and he coincidentally ends up with Lila Kyle, Wolgast's wife.

Who is alive a century later. And a major pointless plot point of annoying stupidity. I really hated her.

And Alicia, the baddest ass of any of the books, of COURSE must suffer her obligatory horrible continuing rapes. Absolutely an integral element for her character. Oh, yeah.

So, yeah. It's all pretty ridiculously constructed, boring, trite–pretty much the same complaints I had in the first book. But the first third of this book is far less compelling than the first third of the first book. All the characters are all very heteronormative. What little religious belief there seems to be is predominantly Christian. So I guess the virals killed all LGBTQA people and nearly all other people of other belief systems.

I'll do the third book, I'm sure. And I'm sure I'll feel the same way. I just think this one was even more absurd, actually.

Alicia's rape really did me in. Of course, she has to be hardcore and slaughter the guy that does it. And then avoid Peter and be mostly quietly traumatized.

I was actually offended by that. Can we lay off the strong, emotionally constipated woman getting raped? Like, hasn't it been done before? Yeah, a million times. I'm sick of it. The only difference between her and a male characters is that she is gendered female. If her personality were the same, but she were MALE, would she get raped? Would that be a necessary plot point? NO, of COURSE not. So why is it acceptable for it to happen (AGAIN) to a female character? F** that. This book actually IS worse than the first. Alicia gets raped, Sara is pretty bland, Amy is typical Magic Child, Lila sucks and is crazy. Yep, some great characters there. Screw that.fumes*