It's Fearful To Face
Written: Apr 16 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Quick read, it's Dean Koontz
Cons: Quick read, ignorant characters, different genre for the author, many more
The Bottom Line: Avoid it like the plague.
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| JiggyJay's Full Review: Face of Fear Books |
I love Dean Koontz so much that I even have a signed autographed picture of his that says, “To Jason: Boo” and then it’s signed “Dean Koontz, 12/29/01” but I just have to say that this is a horrible book by this terror master. There are way too many zits in this book and that’s what drags it down. I loved Koontz’s books “Watchers”, “Phantoms”, and “The Dark Rivers Of The Heart” and I just have to say that this book doesn’t even measure up to any of his books.
Something that I’ve noticed in a lot of his books is the repetitiveness. Sure, the books are still really fun to read, but they are so similar to each other. Every one of his books has one or two scenes of gratuitous sex and all of his books have the same types of characters, but they’re still fun to read. It does get annoying after a while if you’ve read almost all of his books, as I have. In “The Face Of Fear”, he has slasher-type killer instead of the supernatural/conspiracy thing going that he’s known for. It’s a fresh take on his writing, but my philosophy is that if you find something that you like, stick to it. He takes a “James Patterson” side turn that focuses more on confusing you than clearing things up for you.
STORY
An ex-climber and a woman are stuck in a tall building with a psycho killer calling himself “The Butcher” (my, my, that’s an original name). The ex-climber hurt his leg on a fall from Everest a while back so his leg is good, but crap if they want to climb out of the building and the woman is an airhead. The thing that makes this book frightening and riveting, making you turn the pages, is that you don’t know whether “The Butcher” is going to find them and kill them, since almost the whole book, he’s searching for them inside the building. Which is another thing, either it’s me not reading it right or something, but it never really cleared up why the killer was looking for them.
The characters are ultra-crappy and the cheesy, utterly horrendous dialogue doesn’t help them any. “The Butcher” is probably the best character. He is easily a villain that is easy to hate. His dialogue is flat, but his actions are way better than words and really earns some points with me. Graham Harris, the prime antagonist—er, I mean, PROtagonanist, is a jerkhead and his goody-good-guy act just annoys me. His “Rambo-style” of thinking is quickly stupid sounding and just makes me want to strangle his character and the idiotic airhead woman-who-I-forgot-the-name-of doesn’t help either because she is a bimbo. Her attitude and personality are just as much as a potato and make her character easily forgettable. Also, something I would like to say is that “Connie” (I looked her name up) and Graham’s romantic relationship is yucky. Their chemistry is as much as spaghetti and turnovers. They LOVE each other in 200-some pages? That’s unrealistic!
I’ve mentioned all the bad things about this novel. Let’s try to find the good things shall we? It’s a very quick read, which is also a bad thing. This story is 248 pages, which is good if you want a quick read or if you have a couple hour airplane flight, but if you want an enchanting read that involves a lot of detail and imagination and amazing character development, DO NOT look at this book, because it doesn’t fit. You see, I like quick reads because I have a huge bookshelf of books that I need to read, but I also hate them because if I have characters that I just love, I want to stay with them for a long time. In this case, I was ecstatic to put this book down after I finished it. In fact, I’m going to go out and say that after I got through a chapter, I was glad to put it down and do something else instead of keep reading to see what happened next. There was no suspense, just awfully dull characters and an ever more horrible storyline.
SPECS
Berkley Books, New York
248 pages
44 semi-short chapters
5 parts
Stupid cover art
70s style of fonts and printing—hard on eyes—annoying
Cover art non-dimensional and flat and dull and boring
FINAL WORDS
If you are a big Dean Koontz, you will most likely get through the whole book, but if you are trying to get into DK, go pick up another one of his books, because this book isn’t one for you. The bland characters make an unhealthy affair, which only hardcore fans like myself can TOLERATE. Just to tell you, this whole book isn’t that bad, it’s just horrible.
JiggyJay
QUOTE FOR THE REVIEW: “I don’t know which quote I should put…” Jason
SIMILAR WRITERS:
James Patterson
Stephen King
Ridley Peterson
BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ INSTEAD:
“Watchers” by Dean Koontz
“The Cobra Event” by Richard Preston
“Red Dragon” by Thomas Harris
“Cat & Mouse” by James Patterson
“The Dead Half” by Stephen King
Recommended:
Yes
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JiggyJay
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Member: Jason Haskins
Location: Portland, Oregon
Reviews written: 622
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About Me:
Finals = (Possible) Brief Hiatus--Will Try To Keep Up With My Readings/Ratings
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