This morning I reached the 50% mark on my reading of The Passage by Justin Cronin. I am reading this book along with my book buds, The Floatin’ Troopers group, from Bookstagram (the bookish subculture within Instagram). This is a long novel which had been recommended to me by a number of different book people whose opinions I respect. The paperback copy I am reading is 784 pages of fairly small font; quite an undertaking. We slated this book as our May/June read as we figured it would probably take a while for everyone to get through.
Up until this morning I have been listening to the audiobook version along with reading a hard copy. This has allowed me to progress fairly quickly so far through it. Unfortunately, my 2-week library loan expired this morning and someone else had a hold on it so now I am down to just my paperback copy.
The Passage is a post-apocalyptic survival story of epic proportions. It is actually a trilogy – I am little surprised by that, as I feel like the story could be wrapped up concisely in this one book…where is this story going to go? I am so curious. I am not sure I will end up reading them back-to-back as I may need a break after this one.
It reminds me very much of The Stand by Stephen King, which if you have been following me at all, you may know is my all time favorite book which I recommend to everyone! The ultimate good versus evil tale. This story, The Passage, starts off in a fairly similar vein – we all know the story – government experiment gone awry and the rest of mankind pays the price. Similar to The Stand, this story follows the survivors tales in the aftermath of the big event – in this case the time is called ‘AV’ which I am assuming means ‘after virus’. There is a lot of character development in this story and I love to see the converging story lines.
As luck with have it, news just dropped this week that FOX has greenlighted a television series adaptation of this story. However, I have heard that one of my favorite characters from the book, Alicia, is not going to be in the series. I don’t really understand how that is possible since she is one of the main characters in the story who affects a lot of other storylines…seems strange but I will definitely give the show a shot when it is released.
Do you enjoy reading post-apocalyptic fiction? If so, what are some books you would recommend in the genre? Have you read this series? What did you think of it? I would love to hear! Let me know in the comments below!
Happy reading! Cheers~