Title: The Passage

Author: Justin Cronin

Publisher: Ballantine 2011

Genre: Vampires

Pages: 784

Rating:  5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Paranormal --Vampires; New Author; TBR Pile; Dusty Bookshelf; Book Bingo -- 1 Everyone has Read but Me

How I Got It: I own it!

An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival,The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl—and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.

This is definitely one of those books that I just had to read after it came out, and yet, it's taken me two years to get around to it.  Even with all the waiting, it did not disappoint.  This story is terrifying.  It reminds me of I am Legend and The Forest of Hands and Teeth and As the World Dies trilogy all wrapped up into one.  I realize that two of those are zombie stories, but ultimately they are all stories of survival.  The beginning is a bit slow, as in, the characters seem to tell their stories in stream of consciousness.  It took a while to get used to, but once I did, I loved the style.  We get inside the heads of the characters We see their hopes, joys, and fears.  We understand them.  This makes the story much easier to follow as we drift from character to character and later skip decades.  I loved Alicia and Michael.  Those were definitely my favorite characters.  They each have their own specialty, but neither one is quite comfortable in their own skin and around other people.  The other characters are all great, I just really connected to those two.  Initially I thought I would hated the time jump, but the story had to jump in order to stay interesting.  I don't need to see the rest of the war and attempted evacuation.  The echoes linger even ~90 years in the future.  Hopefully, I can pick up the sequel later this year.

Passage

• #1 The Passage
• #2 The Twelve
• #3 The City of Mirrors