Saturday, April 18, 2009

REVIEW: Invasion, by Robin Cook

From Penguin's online site:

Robin Cook's "pressure cooker of a thriller" (Booklist) takes medical technology into a new realm, where everything we know about the human body-and the universe we live in-is about to be challenged.


First let me give you the background. People start coming down with a virus, and after quickly recovering, they are "changed". As it turns out, it is an alien virus. Kind of an inter-galactic "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner".

Let me put it bluntly: This book was almost painful to read. There were moments when I almost felt as if I were reading a creative writing project submitted by a high school student. It was contrived, almost juvenile, and at times the storyline made me feel like I was listening to an eight-year-old boy ramble on about his imaginary world. Like when my friend's son was bringing me into his play world one time, and he pulled some snips of electrical wire out of his pocket, held up the different colored strands and proceeded to tell me how they were DNA strands that he was going to...I don't know...morph into some hybrid or something. THAT's what this book was like for me. The ramblings of a child's mind.

At times, the book seemed almost pedantic, as if Cook was throwing around big words and medical jargon to show off. (Sidenote: Isn't it ironic that one would almost have to be a pedant in order to use the term "pedantic"? Just a little self-observation.)

This definitely was not what I expected of Robin Cook, one of the premier medical thriller authors. I struggled to stick with it. The last 100 pages I found myself constantly counting how many pages I had remaining to endure before I got to read a REAL story!

I may have liked this story at 12 years of age, but not at 40. If you are above the age of 17, I say, "Avoid this book!" There are so many better yarns out there to entertain your mind!

Product Details
  • Author: Robin Cook
  • Paperback: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Berkley (November 6, 2007)
  • ISBN-10: 0425219577
  • ISBN-13: 978-0425219577
My Rating: 4 out of 10

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