Short reviews on some scary reads--The Passage and Breed

The Passage: A Novel
This is my kind of book.  Very horrific, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, Stephen King-esque.  All these elements make me happy when I'm reading a book.  I wish I was a fast reader and that I didn't have so many other books going because I would have devoted all my time to this book and finished it faster.  I'm not the type to read a series back to back (something I'm discovering about myself again as I try to read the entire Dark Tower series through July of 2013), but I'm also not a fan of cliffhangers and there is a big one in this book.  So, The Twelve may be on my horizon sooner than later.  Seriously though, Justin Cronin is a talented writer and he is great at delivering the scares and the desperation.  My friend, Heather, has said that The Twelve is even better.  If that's the case, then I think Mr. Cronin has a long future on my bookshelves.

About the book:
“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.” 

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Breed: A Novel
Wow! Just...wow! I read this book faster than I've read any book in a long time.  I could not stop turning pages.  I haven't been this excited about a horror novel since probably The Ruins by Scott Smith (please DON'T judge the book by its movie), another novel I could not put down.  Novak takes an ordinary topic...married couples unable to have children and desperate to do so...and turns it on its ear. What would you do to have a child?  I know how important my sons are to me and can't quite imagine life without them, but I ask myself.  Would I have gone as far as the couple in this book?  This is one implication of the book.  Also, how strong is our animal nature?  So, not only is this one a scary page turner (and also quite funny at moments), it actually gets the reader thinking.  If you haven't read this one...you just really must!

About the book:
Alex and Leslie Twisden lead charmed lives-fabulous jobs, a luxurious town house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a passionate marriage. What they don’t have is a child, and as they try one infertility treatment after the next, yearning turns into obsession. As a last-ditch attempt to make their dream of parenthood come true, Alex and Leslie travel deep into Slovenia, where they submit to a painful and terrifying procedure that finally gives them what they so fervently desire . . . but with awful consequences.

Ten years later, cosseted and adored but living in a house of secrets, the twins Adam and Alice find themselves locked into their rooms every night, with sounds coming from their parents’ bedroom getting progressively louder, more violent, and more disturbing.

Driven to a desperate search for answers, Adam and Alice set out on a quest to learn the true nature of the man and woman who raised them. Their discovery will upend everything they thought they knew about their parents and will reveal a threat so horrible that it must be escaped, at any cost.

Thank you to the publisher for providing Breed for my honest review.

Book synopses obtained from Goodreads.com