Mummy Geek: The Twelve

You may or may not have read Mummy Geek's review of The Passage. Well, since then she has read The Twelve which I reviewed a month or two ago and *drum roll please*, Mummy Geek has written her very on review of it! HERE IT IS:


Justin Cronin, I am sorry!!

I enjoyed "The Passage" with reservations but I didn`t realise until reading "The Twelve" what a masterpiece it is. One needs to read the trilogy to fully appreciate the magnitude of the concept. Obviously it was appreciated fully by the British man who approached me beside a pool in America asking how I had come by an advance copy as he and his family were desperate to read it! (Couldn`t offer him mine as the Geeklet had a waiting list for lends!).

I expected a repetitive series of quests to find The Twelve but right from the start I saw I was very wrong.

I can now understand why the author took such great care to give backstories to characters and didn`t abandon all of them as I wrongly assumed. I`ll say no more, don`t want to spoil the enjoyment!

Everything in this novel, including what I interpret as intended humour in the form of Guilder who I envisage as a kind of `Allan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham` kind of ranting character. Or perhaps that`s just the way I interpret things? 

At the end the scene is brilliantly set for the concluding part. Can`t wait!!

And along with all this is Mr. Cronin`s outstanding writing ability. I missed the subtleties sometimes as the plot had me so engrossed. I might read these again sometime (I almost never read anything more than once, and then only years later) to fully enjoy his style. 

If well conceived, properly financed and carefully cast, scripted, directed etc this would make an excellent film trilogy I can imagine queues around the block for the sequels after people had seen the first. Perhaps it needs more than three films as if condensed too much lots could be lost. 

Buy the first two now, get the third when it comes out and read all three, one after the other. It won`t take as long as you might think as you won`t be able to put them down!!

Thank you Justin Cronin for a great read on a number of levels.