Review of 'The City (with bonus short story The Neighbor): A Novel' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
It had been some little while since I've read a complete novel by Dean Koontz and I was happy to see that NetGalley offered advance review copies of The City so I could see what he has been up to lately. Boy, what a letdown. I used to enjoy a Koontz novel from time to time as long as I didn't read too many too close together where his formula becomes readily apparent.
Maybe I should be happier with this book because he's clearly mixed up his formula in the time I stayed away. It was nearly 65% of the way through the book before a clever labrador retriever made an appearance and there's a decided lack of verbose descriptions of plant life and architecture. But there's an equal lack of plot and character development. There's nothing really all that wrong with the book, but I didn't find a whole …
It had been some little while since I've read a complete novel by Dean Koontz and I was happy to see that NetGalley offered advance review copies of The City so I could see what he has been up to lately. Boy, what a letdown. I used to enjoy a Koontz novel from time to time as long as I didn't read too many too close together where his formula becomes readily apparent.
Maybe I should be happier with this book because he's clearly mixed up his formula in the time I stayed away. It was nearly 65% of the way through the book before a clever labrador retriever made an appearance and there's a decided lack of verbose descriptions of plant life and architecture. But there's an equal lack of plot and character development. There's nothing really all that wrong with the book, but I didn't find a whole lot that's right with it either. What started out as a bit of pleasantly creepy foreshadowing as the mysterious woman who is the physical manifestation of the city dropped hints of danger and intrigue to a little boy became a cruel tease. Lots of foreshadowing, not many actual events. We have a number of characters who are talented musicians, but the characters don't sing. They don't breathe. They don't live within the pages. They are just lists of character traits who declaim a bit of dialogue from time to time. Nobody is particularly memorable or interesting.
