Starts slow; doesn't get better
357016
I'll be honest.  I turned off the movie.  It started slow, and never really improved before I gave up.  The parts that were supposed to be funny really fell flat.
4027716
Bit lame beginning, but improves along the way.
4513381
Yet another thriller that starts out with a bang - "wtF is going on?!?!" -- but gets lost, confusing, and ends on a whimper. (Think TV's "Lost".)

I loved the opening -- great writing, good characters -- and then the setup & tension. Crouch is a compelling and talented writer in terms of crafting a sentence, character, or scene. Where he loses it is in the bigger picture: holding the plot together over the story arc; keeping the pacing & story from going off into the cornfields (there's a kind of painfully long detour where the protagonist Jason goes a bit native in a homeless-hobo kind of way that you can't wait until it's over); and a lot of elements that feel forced and/or with really inadequate laying-the-groundwork-for (e.g. lots of surprisingly unpleasant alter-egos, surprisingly nasty compatriots in the initial alt-'verse, and others).

My biggest gripes, though, are: (spoiler alert):
(a) it's made clear in a few milliseconds that the guy's an expert on the physics of alternate realities -- yet we're not expected to figure out what's going on for many, many pages.
- and -
(b) the last third of the book starts to feel as though it's constructed almost entirely of single-paragraph sentences.
Like a sports column.
Which gets irritating.
But goes on for page after page.
After page.
After page.
For no reason.
Other than suspense.
Or something.
(Get it?)

Overall, it really felt like Crouch was under deadline, or didn't quite know how to wrap it up smoothly (a common flaw), or was thinking about a movie option (as others have suggested), or something. Many a book's had a great opening and then petered out with the dreaded "last third" curse -- this is definitely one of them. I really wish it *hadn't* -- I loved the first third, but had I not been on a plane, I wouldn't have made it to the end. :-(
2736220
This is one of those books that starts out great and just sort of goes downhill.  From the get go you're thrown into a very interesting excavation of an ancient site, only to have things go catastrophically insane. The beginning really is great. It is imaginative and suspenseful. In fact, with this book, immagination and suspense could have served a much greater purpose. The fear of things unknown could have succesfully drawn a little more life into the story, for once the author describes the horrid soul ingesting "lizard people," the book sort of becomes a joke.  So, my main gripe is that the antagonistic force driving the story is a bit weak. All in all, that's not too bad. The book isn't terrible by all accounts.  It certainly won't strike terror into your soul, or even make you slightly perspire at the thought of the coming of the title date. But hey, at least there is some negative force to contend with, even if it is ridiculous. My other main gripe is a continuity issue that pops up when the protagonist from the two moon world meets the protagonist from our own world. Wylie from one moon earth smokes a cigar, in which Martin from two moon earth is absolutely schocked because no one from his world smokes tobacco. There is a big deal made of it at this point in the book.  Much earlier in the story however, Martin hijacks an automobile in order to escape a crazed mob of pursuers.  When Martin enters the vehicle, the interior is described as smelling of cigarrettes(page 137 paperback), which would imply that people in his world do indeed smoke (since individuals would not draw a reference in comparison to an object of unfamiliarity, would they?).  Whereas later (page 278), this knowledge is unheard of to Martin. While this is not a huge error, it does show that either the writer was rushed and looking for filler material, or, he kept proofreading to a minimum, or both.  Minor continuity flaws are fine, unless they are highlighted and brought to attention later on. Some people may defend page 137 as being descriptive narrative, however, if people on two moon earth did not smoke tobacco, the car would not smell like cigarrettes, so there would be no need for the author to describe it as smelling as such.
  There are points to this tale that I enjoyed. The concept of alternate worlds was enjoyable, however, awkward, with no real explanation given for the difference in circumstance from world to world. I also greatly enjoyed the concept of a latent energy within all humans. Any at home Doomsday prophecy theorist has probably already came across a couple of possible correlations between the Mayans, people of Ancient India, and the idea of Kundalini. I won't go into detail about Kundalini, because it would take far too much time. It is nice to see the auther draw in a tie for those who have already speculated on the idea.
  In conclusion, it's not a terrible book. Not a good book either. If you're already a Strieber fan, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. If you're not a fan of his, however, this book probably won't transform you into one. Thank you for your time.
2080567
I have been an avid reader since childhood. There is never a time when I don't have a book in progress. I started reading this book and every time I pick it up, I tell myself that it is going to start getting better. But, it doesn't! I can almost grasp the parts pertaining to Oskar, but the Grandparent storyline is just not catching on. I am going to put the book down, start another and maybe eventually go back to this one. Maybe I will have better luck the next go round.
3075289
The book begins with a lot of background and detail about characters and places, as well as history and art. As it moves along, it necessarily shifts to focus on the present. The characters become less inspiring and more aimless. Their motivation is unclear.
2657308
starts slow, i didn't like the characters at first but turn out to be a good read
3769016
I think this is a pretty good book. The problem is that it starts out slow, so I had to force myself to push on. the second half is better than the first half.
190361
slow at the beginning , but it gets better . The timeline is confusing at first.
3413998
This story began so slowly that I lost interest half way through and almost forgot about it. After I picked it up again later it began to get better and turned out quite suspenseful.
566473
For most of this novel - supposedly, the first of Saul Bellow's great novels (it won him the National Book Award in 1954) - the title for this review that kept suggesting itself to me was "The Prince of Prolixity".  Because Bellow, through his first-person narrator Augie March, just goes on and on, and on and on.  The page cannot contain the prose -- it overflows and spills onto the reader's lap, then the floor, and under the door -- and the novel seems endless.

The novel consists of Augie March's life story, his "campaign after a worth-while fate".  The picaresque story begins in Chicago and most of it takes place in Chicago.  Augie's father has disappeared, his mother is blind, his younger brother is retarded, and the family just manages to scrape by, with the occasional assistance of Welfare.  When the Depression comes, matters get worse.  Augie's older brother, Simon, devotes himself to Mammon.  But Augie cannot bring himself to follow his brother's path.  He has a seeming myriad of jobs - including delivering newspapers, working in a poolroom, gofer for a crippled businessman, selling shoes and then sporting goods and then rubberized paint, working for his brother in a coalyard, union organizer, kept companion for a wealthy woman, and purser in the merchant marine.  By the end of the novel World War II is over and Augie is in Paris.  But it is an open-ended story; Augie's "earthly pilgrimage" will continue to unfold.

In the first half of the novel, Augie seems preoccupied primarily with money; in the second half, with love.  But, in actuality, what he really is wrestling with throughout is life, and his role in life --  "whether I was all I might be".  In conventional literary analysis, THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH might be categorized as a "quest for identity".  But I am reluctant to pigeonhole the novel, because it is so individuated -- perhaps a term with a double meaning, since, if I understand Jungian psychology properly (a BIG "if"), the novel could be said to chronicle the "individuation" of Augie March.

And, ultimately, what makes the novel special is its energy, its ebullience, its very prolixity.  In telling Augie's story, Saul Bellow nearly out-Whitman's Walt Whitman in "Song of Myself".  The novel sprawls, it rambles, it strews about classical and cultural and historical allusions like chickenfeed, it strains syntax, and it sandwiches profound thoughts and sparkling gems of prose amongst sentences that are baffling, or nonsensical, or maybe even silly.  The writing often is exasperating, but, oddly, in the end I found it exhilarating.  The reading experience was somewhat akin to what I remember about reading Melville's "Moby Dick" or Joyce's "Ulysses" (not to suggest that AUGIE MARCH is quite their equal).

Just one example of Bellow's style, a passage in which Augie describes how it was that he got hooked on reading, especially the reading of history:

"So suppose I wasn't created to read a great declaration, or to boss a palatinate, or send off a message to Avignon, and so on, I could SEE, so there nevertheless was a share for me in all that had happened.  How much of a share?  Why, I knew there were things that would never, because they could never, come of my reading.  But this knowledge was not so different from the remote but ever-present death that sits in the corner of the loving bedroom; though it doesn't budge from the corner, you wouldn't stop your loving.  Then neither would I stop my reading.  I sat and read."

In its wordy way, that's a pretty good explanation for why I read.  And, although it took me three months to make my way from beginning to end, I am glad that I finally got around to reading THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH.
4357316
To be completely honest, I'm a little frustrated with this book because I had high hopes for it... It's still a really interesting story to read but it's so slow to pick up in the beginning! Hopefully towards the end it gets better.
1273349
It was slow to start, but then about halfway through, the pace picked up.
1570680
Ms. Waters obviously has prodigious writing talent. She writes like a poet. The first third of the book does very little to build tension and move things forward. She shows the hopelessness, the boredom, and the quiet desperation of the character, but she does this until it's unbearable. Page after page after page, does nothing but show the protagonist's tedious housework and lonely outings. She does this as though writing poetry, but enough already, I get it.

At somewhere around the middle third of the book, she finally builds real tension and conflict, but even then, it builds a little too slowly. Finally, the book turns into an extremely great page-turner, a real lose-sleep section. Their are no cliches in this portion, as the tension is surprising and  multi-layered.

I will read more of her, if her future work is trimmed up, and gets to the story faster. If not, this is the last work of her's that I will read.
4719021
I'm a fan of fantasy.  I'm a fan of long, complicated plots and intricate detail.

However, I've been trying to read this book for 4 months now, and even with skimming pages I can't seem to get to the end.

I waited a long time for this book to come out in paperback.  Then I had to order it.  So I will read it, even if takes me into the next millenium.

I'm not sure how so little can happen in such a complicated scenario.  The characters are marching back and forth across a desert and dying in droves.  I'm surprised anyone is left to carry on with the story.  However, they are, and I will read to the end.  It has to get better at some point, I hope.
540799
I tried to get into the story, but it moves very slow in the beginning. I started skimming but couldn't pick up the story line again. Maybe it's just me.
1023249
The book started out slow and very depressing, but after reading a few chapters, I couldn't put it down.