Find my reviews on Blogger ~ Reviews by Bookish Sarah 
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 The Passage is a spectacular mish-mash of genres. This book is massive (I read a 1,200 page Large Print copy from the library). I rarely read books that are so incredibly long. In all honesty, I have only read one other book that was over 600-ish pages. It took a whole lot of patience on my part. Right around a third of the way in I found it almost a chore to pick the book up and finish it. Cronin lost me a little with the changing of characters. BUT, this book, overall was wonderful. 
 (view spoiler)[This is a vampire novel, but not really your average one. These vamps were the result of a government/military project gone awry. The result turns out to be... you guessed it! The apocalypse. A gory one at that. After the initial bloodshed and insanity, Cronin then jumps ahead 90 some years into a post-apocalyptic future in which there are pockets of people who've survived. This is where I almost wanted to put it down. The characters have completely changed at this point and it's hard to handle. For me it was like starting a whole new book/story. I felt a pang of great disappointment when I realized what Cronin did here. The disappointment lasted for another 100-150 or so pages. As I continued to read though, I became attached to the new characters. There are MANY characters in this book. Quite a few of the main folks you come to know, end up dead. Cronin is not afraid to kill someone off, that's for sure, but he writes his characters superbly. Watch out for Amy, she'll steal your heart right out of your chest! (hide spoiler)] 
 Once you get past the introduction of The Colony, it's all a thrill ride from there! You get some nice little plot twists. A few surprises come rolling in around the last quarter of the book. It's worth getting through the rough patch in the middle to get to the climax. 
 It left me anxiously waiting for installment 2. Although I absolutely hope it's a somewhat shorter book. LOL