jdavidhacker1 reviewed Odd Thomas by Dean R. Koontz (Odd Thomas, #1)
None
3 stars
I thought this would be better? Maybe its suffering from some first book-ism.returnThere isn't enough of the kind of snappy dialogue and pacing I've come to expect from Koontz, especially in this particular era. We get a little bit of that in the back and forth between our main ghost seeing, premonition having character Odd Thomas and his almost noir detective sharp and skilled fiance Stormy (who bears some resemblance to other highly skilled female protagonists in other Koontz novels). The pacing especially is sluggish compared to much of the other Koontz I've read. Maybe Odd himself reads more clearly and logically in subsequent books, but the tone of his point of view narration was really jarring within the context of the story. For a 20 year old in (relatively)modern small town America with only a high school education, his internal monologue reads more like a Lovecraft protagonist...and I love …
I thought this would be better? Maybe its suffering from some first book-ism.returnThere isn't enough of the kind of snappy dialogue and pacing I've come to expect from Koontz, especially in this particular era. We get a little bit of that in the back and forth between our main ghost seeing, premonition having character Odd Thomas and his almost noir detective sharp and skilled fiance Stormy (who bears some resemblance to other highly skilled female protagonists in other Koontz novels). The pacing especially is sluggish compared to much of the other Koontz I've read. Maybe Odd himself reads more clearly and logically in subsequent books, but the tone of his point of view narration was really jarring within the context of the story. For a 20 year old in (relatively)modern small town America with only a high school education, his internal monologue reads more like a Lovecraft protagonist...and I love Lovecraft and those characters, but it doesn't make sense within the context of this character? It also doesn't seem to align with much of his actual dialogue and interaction with other characters. returnOverall, Odd Thomas was just fine, but not as good as anticipated from how loved the series and character are. I'll probably still read a few more from the library to see if it improves over time.
