The Twelve

Praise Jesus, and thank Gawwwd this book has ended! It was so long I forgot what happened at the beginning! Sweet man alive, how many friggin’ words is this thing? So many, nobody’s kept count! I knew there was a reason I stopped reading doorstoppers – as the author said himself, it’s good for killing mice. It was only Christopher Hitchens, insulting someone’s intelligence by saying they had probably never read a long book, who made me bother again, see if I was up to it. Only just, TBH. In fairness, the beginning was high tempo. King’s quote about the real world slipping away was true. It would have made a hooking novella, or short novel. But then it had to have a Part 2, didn’t it. (What is it with authors and parts? At least make them roughly equal. Each character’s uncle’s budgie had their own part near the end.) This was no ordinary Part 2 either. This part 2 spawned a generational gap, skipping nearly a hundred years into the future. Felt like I was starting another book. I should have started another book.

There was a stand-out scene near the end inside a cage involving a fight against a vampire, but I’m sorry, a good beginning and this cannot justify 733 pages. It was the first time I’ve ever been reading and clock watching at the same time. Straight up. Goddamn clock watching and reading at the same blinkin’ time. How was I to know, also, that this is only the middle of a trilogy!? Wow and wow again. A big long fat bloated woooooooooooow. So that’s why none of it made any sense.

THE WAY WE FIGURE THINGS OUT HERE, successful people can take some stick. It’s what the tossernet is for. It’s not cool to kick starving up ‘n’ comers in the teeth, but runaway moneymakers can kop for it. So:

Boring as. And so many names. He even ruined a name in my own current book. Crukshank. There you go. This guy has already banded it around the free world in 40 languages so you lot may as well hear it from me to boot. He was bound to spoil some, simply by mentioning so many. And who calls their vampires Virals? Who even writes vampire novel trilogies? Helllloooooo. Apparently, this was shorter than the first. Shorter. How can this be shorter than anything but the bible? He even has his own version of the bible at the beginning! Scary how realistic his made up world is. To give him credit, they ARE great vampires, but still...get a grip fella, and sort that author photograph as well mate.

VERDICT: Stick with Deaver