Title: The Three
Author: Sarah Lotz
Synopsis (from bn.com): Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists “The Three” are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he’s right?
The world is stunned when four planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. There doesn’t seem to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters, a single child is the sole survivor. Dubbed “the three” by the press, these “miracle children” achieve international celebrity. Things take a dark turn when a fanatical preacher starts insisting that the young survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse.
As the children’s behavior grows increasingly disturbing, even their loved ones start to suspect there could be some truth behind the conspiracy theory. And when a survivor from the fourth accident is found, deadly alliances are formed and it becomes ever more difficult- and dangerous -to decipher the truth.
Combining the complexity of Lost and the thrills of Stephen King, THE THREE is an enormously ambitious thriller from a blazingly talented storyteller.
My thoughts: Well, I literally just finished this book and had to sit right down to somehow sort out my thoughts about this particular read. My friend from book club emailed me a couple of weeks ago with the synopsis of this book and it looked like a fantastic read that was just my thing – 4 plane crashes that occur at the same time, 3 survivors all children, conspiracy theories, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, creepy and exciting, so I excitedly ran to the library to put it on hold.
Now as I sit reflecting on what I just read, this is a first for me, but I literally don’t know how I feel about this book. I am not sure if it was so bad that it held my attention enough to read it and be good or if was so good that it held my attention and was bad. I am so, so confused.
Here are some of my immediate thoughts:
1. Perhaps I should have done my research a bit more first, but I thought this book was simply a mystery/thriller. In fact, it was more of a weird horror/sci fi/sort of dystopian vibe going on. Not really my style!
2. The book itself is written as a book within a book. It took me a while, but here is what I mean. The book is written from the perspective of a non-fiction book chronicling the events of that day, Black Thursday, and is written as a series of texts, letters, and interviews from multiple people involved that day. Although an interesting concept, this format certainly didn’t add to this book in any way. In fact, it got a bit confusing and we were introduced to many, many random characters that truly didn’t play any major role in the plot.
3. Clearly, one of the major premises of this book is that some conspiracy theorists and right-wing, Christian groups decide that the three surviving children of the plane crashes are actually the Four Horse Men of the Apocalyse and hence the plot moves quickly into End Times/Rapture. The author clearly isn’t a fan of Christianity or right-wing thought, so if you are a Christian that is easily offended by this type of thought, I highly suggest you stay away from this book.
4. And last but certainly not least – THE ENDING! Or should I say, what ending? I am not a fan of ambiguity in my endings and most certainly not a fan of books that just end and leave me with the feeling I had with this book, namely “Is that it? So what happened? Where did the ending go? WHAT?” Pardon the whole plane crash analogy here, but this ending just crashed and burned, what little there was of it. It is as if the author just completely lost where the story was going or had no idea where it was going to go, so just ended it. Ugh, so frustrating for me!
All in all, I would have to give this book that looked oh so promising a huge thumbs down. It moved along fast enough, but ultimately just lost its steam and left this reader extremely unfulfilled. I must say, I kind of wish I had the hours I spent reading it back and I still need some closure!
And remember,
Books Are Life,
Heather
Books Are Life - Vita Libri 