Silly and unsophisticated "thriller"
595172
Started out ok.  Got boring about the 4th time Christine woke up in bed with Ben and had to repeat the previous day's events. I started skipping whole paragraphs just to get to some progression in the story. Too may "I'm going to tell Ben about Dr. Nash and Claire" and then she doesn't because she senses something's wrong.

The ending ... seriously? Do we really think a man posing as her husband would be able to remove her from the facility?  That her best friend and son would not have done some checking when they found out she was back living with "Ben"?

Don't waste your money. It isn't tense and exciting. The writing isn't great and the ending is just too silly. Almost as if it were written for a low budget Hollywood movie ... that bombs.
3526489
Full disclosure: I don't read a lot of novels, I prefer my books to be of the non-fiction variety, but I do enjoy the ocassional thriller. But to call this book a thriller is a stretch. It seemed to me more like the author was trying to show off how many different technology concepts he knew about. Most of the book is just pointless, plotless filler. The first chapter is okay, but it fails at the most important task of a first chapter: draw in the reader. After the first chapter I was bored of this book, but you can't review what you haven't read, so I kept reading. The second chapter was nothing but filler. It served no purpose and the plot of the book wouldn't have been impacted in any way by simply deleting the entire thing. I also feel the need to point out that the author frequently mentioned the drink being served in "china cups" which I found weird and honestly quite annoying. Why do we care what type of glass they were using? It's just more meaningless filler. There's no point in the book that I felt drawn in, conected to the characters, or compelled in anyway to continue reading. I barely managed to finish this book, and the end didn't change my opinion of the book at all. It was boring and anti-climactic.
1752157
Thrilling scenes alone do not make for a good thriller. Neither do multiple fast cuts from one viewpoint to another. I like a bit more substance in the thrillers I read. In the case of "Dead Man Switch" I felt like I was reading the outline for the novel not the novel itself. Quirk's writing is so minimalist connections between scenes and characters are disjointed.  Worse, characters speak few words -- and all sound the same. He tells us what the character is thinking but he provides sparse context for the character's developmental arc (if any) during the course of the story. Genre writing doesn't get a free pass to exclude any literary substance.&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Maul-of-America/dp/B01CWFQV0I/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Maul of America</a>
1074392
Everything from the pacing to the characterization is too outlandish to take seriously and any attempts to read it as a serious work of fiction led to a headache within a minute.  In truth, it read more like a farce (and that is often times a stretch) and can only be enjoyed in the same fashion as the movies mocked in the mystery science theater 3000 could be.
4185354
*Spoiler Alert*

This was a boring, unbelievable conspiracy story with mediocre writing. The plot is so far-fetched that it is ludicrous. There's no suspense and far too much predictability. The romance is tepid and the "hero" lackluster and rather juvenile. The heroine, Sybylla, entrusts crucial evidence to a trusted friend, Susu, (oops! evidence tampering).  Susu conveniently leaves the evidence for Sybylla at the gym right before Susu is murdered. Susu is not that stupid! She would have returned the evidence to Sybylla immediately and given her the results. Sybylla now realizes she is in danger. She knows that she must make the evidence public in order to be safe. She tries to do this at Trent's trial, but then Trent dies. More danger! But does she go to the police? Call a press conference? No. She keeps the evidence hidden in her purse so the bad guy can later find it and destroy it.

The writing doesn't help. Korelitz has a difficult time transitioning from a flashback to the present time, confusing the reader. One of the most important principles of fiction writing is to "keep the reader in the story." The following is an example of writing which goes back and forth between past and present and makes no sense:

The court is in session for jury selection for Trent's trial. The DA, Greer, approaches Sybylla and extends his hand. "Sybylla's throat tightened in distaste. Unbidden, the memory of Greer and his buddy....leering at her from the dim corner of the Hyperion Club dining room reconstituted itself before her eyes. In her annoyance, she forgot completely to accept Greer's hand, a nonevent later inflated by the attending press into TRENT ATTY SNUBS DA."

Reconstituted? It makes me cringe. But can you figure out what happened when? It appears that the flashback annoyed Sybylla so that she didn't shake hands and the press exploited it with a headline. But when you keep reading the paragraph:

"Sybylla had, after all, just been having a perfectly visible row with her father..."

Well, the fight with her father took place at the Club. So are we now talking about a handshake at the Club (past) or in the courtroom (present)? Sounds like the Club. But she only saw Greer briefly at the Club. There was no interaction between them. And certainly no reporters since the Hyperion Club was extremely exclusive.  So she must have refused to shake hands in the courtroom, right?

No. A few sentences later, we find:

"Greer hadn't withdrawn his hand and it stuck out....which Sybylla now dutifully shook."

So where's the snub of the DA when the Trent attorney didn't shake his hand?

There was more mystery in figuring out the writing than there was in the plot.
3421439
I understand this is only a movie, but I enjoy thrillers where the mind can be somewhat fooled into believing it could really happen. This is not one of those movies! Keanu Reeves --one simple man --survives despite all the deadly friction he encounters throughout the movie. The foundation of this movie is simply a one-man mafia, with a bunch of shooting, stabbing & neck-snapping... And for what? All over a killed dog & a stolen car. Totally whack plot!
506499
A pedestrian hodgepodge of hackneyed cliches and prose that somehow manages to be both needlessly convoluted yet beyond simple-minded.

The plot, of which is expounded upon in painful detail (multiple times), does not feel restrained to the confines of time and space, as the tense seems to change for no real reason. Even if you have read the Hunger Games, however, there are still surprises to be had, in the same sense that opening a treasure chest and being eaten as a mimic can be "surprising." The "surprises" came in the form of strange plot twists that are so detached from basic logic that you couldn't possibly see them coming.

The eponymous "doge" barely qualifies as a side-character. The "lobster" and "cat" described on the back are mentioned in approximately one sentence and promptly forgotten. Dialogue is literally copy-pasted, just in case you've managed for forget the plot points detailed just paragraphs ago. Punctuation is sparsely used and in some places entirely absent. Characters drop in and out like a game of Goldeneye where you have five friends and four controllers. The conflicts are handled similarly, such as in the case of a vicious snake (An excerpt: "Really!" Oh no it's a snake!"Says Craig "I hate snakes" I said.) that is forgotten in the very next sentence.

It is the 49th Annual Reaping Games, which take place in the year 102214, 95 years after the 33rd Annual Reaping Games. You wouldn't know that this series takes place 100,000 years in the future, as the characters are watching the Simpsons on television. It's plausible, however, that it hasn't really been 100,000 years, as Mr. Brown plays fast and loose with the concept of chronology.

In short, I believe I put more thought into writing this review than the author put into this book. And it shows. What's worse, it ends on a cliffhanger (sort of), with a dire warning to beware a dangerous new enemy that lurk in the shadows. Perhaps some of the many, many questions that were raised will be answered in the next installment of this series. Definitely looking forward to the sequel!
3535876
This movie is like a parody of the thriller genre. The plot twist at the end makes no sense. The second plot twist that follows roughly five minutes after the first plot twist is obvious and silly. And also makes no sense.

Fortunately, the movie is only one and a half hours long.
4403893
This derivative "thriller" is way too long on psychobabble and too short on believable story.  Plot devices are transparent and heroine is too absurd to be concerned about.
4572806
Disappointing courtroom thriller has an excellent Ashley Judd capitalizing on her success two years earlier in Double Jeopardy. She plays a successful attorney married to a really nice guy (Jim Caviezel) who has no particular occupation except to attempt to impregnate her in the mornings and then work in the toolshed for the rest of the day. She discovers that he actually has a past when the FBI take him into custody and accuse him of a war crime involving the murder of innocent El Salvadoran civilians that he supposedly committed when he was still a marine (and had a different name). Judd, completely perplexed and unsure of who's she even married to at this point, decides to go with her gut instinct anyway and appoints herself her husband's attorney along with the green novice (Adam Scott) they've already given him, and to make sure she fully can comprehend military law enlists the help of a wild-card washed up ex-alcoholic lawyer (Morgan Freeman, Judd's costar from the 1997 thriller Kiss The Girls). Despite the annoying setbacks (the lame subplot involving Amanda Peet as Judd's irresponsible younger sister, not to mention cloying scenes like Caviezel insisting he and his wife get it on in the lie-detector test room because *wink wink* no one's looking), the majority of the film's running plot is actually quite involving: twists and turns and incredible complications kept me riveted to the screen, desperate to find out how Judd would get herself and her family out of this incredible mess. Plus the film benefits from genuine chemistry between the lady heroine and Freeman, their characters written a slight cut above the usual Determined with a capital D freedom fighters you get in these kinds of films. Director Carl Franklin is obviously interested in making something more than just the average Hollywood thriller, something apparent from his more imaginative camera angles and editing techniques, but the film eventually takes an obvious turn in its third act that in itself reveals the film's climactic finale before it even happens, and you're left with an empty feeling like you've seen it all before. Or perhaps you had that feeling earlier when Judd got into the "you're in over your head" phase of the investigation where mysterious cars with tinted windows start driving really close to hers.
2426530
I'll echo what's already been said: standard romantic thriller. Also, Magus-like in its misdirection, but fortunately (or unfortunately, depending) with none of the attempts at profundity.

Much build-up as to shocking sexual goings-on, with the "truth" about the lover-liars being something of a let-down. This is what it's all been leading up to? Seriously?

The best moment of the book for me was the laugh I had when the heroine, Gini, has "one question" for the puppet master. All the intrigue and murder, and that's your uppermost concern? It was then I began to wonder if the whole book was written as a joke. An over-long joke that didn't work because what it's making fun of is often something of a joke, even when done in earnest. Shortly after posing her question, the heroine is literally led up a garden path, and I'm thinking 'is this the author's way of mocking anyone who's stuck around this long?'. I deserve it, the book is stupid, I'm a fool, ha ha ha.
1913006
A cobbled collection of unsubstantiated claims, guesswork, opinion, wild and unproven theory bereft of any historical, archeological or linguistic proof. A house of cards that collapses with exposure to simple logic or research.
Associations made between Egypt, Sumer and Freemasons are very tenuous at best, more often simply ridiculous - supported only by the authors' curious interpretations, assumptions or simply guesses. Claims are not backed by proper documentation, authority or creditable references. What starts as a wild guess in one chapter becomes a "conclusion" by the end, then treated as "fact" thereafter.
This is a flight of fancy; the authors lack basic credentials or training in any of the fields they discuss. It is a fantasy that contains little more than sequential leaps of blind faith from one rickety supposition to another. The result is  stunning only in its ability to defy the gravity of evidence.
Leave this book on the same shelf as Von Daniken and other silly forays into the alleged unknown - only the most gullible will credit any of its claims. It isn't even entertaining enough to read as humour.
957927
A ridiculous silly book filled with cliches and tired old conventions. Try this paraphrase: "I have valuable information for you that will get the government off your back but can only give it to you later....".(then later:) "That information I was talking about is too dangerous to carry around, so here is a locker key the files are safe. The locker is at...."  Oops someone's head explodes a pink mist.

Hello? Is there a tired old concept more overused than 'here is the priceless info you need' but unfortunately the bad guys got there first'? Just a weensie bit of creativity could have handled this so much better.

This is apparently a five-book series (I'll never really know since I quit after 30 pages) involving the ultra-paranoid 'entire world is out to get me' concept that is handled so much better in Jason Bourne's world. Way too frustrating. If you can handle all five of these books (or even the first one) your'e a better man than I am!
987871
I accepted a long time ago that it takes a special mindset to read Stuart Woods books as opposed to most similar works of fiction. His books are like cotton candy - tasty, amusing and perhaps even slightly addictive....but totally without any real substance. The characters are fun to follow because they're all 'beautiful' people with plenty of money and lots of sexual adventures. What's not to like?
The plots however are utterly absurd. The constant coincidences get pretty silly and the gaps in logic are astounding. Like, Holly & the state and local police are constantly telling everyone they meet who they suspect of being the rapist/murderer and why. In one case they manage to go from a vague suspicion to a virtual certainly of one suspect, all without the slightest shred of evidence. Another time a killer uses a handgun on a victim in his home in a residential area in the dead of night and never even considers whether the neighbors might hear the shot. It's all just way too convenient at the expense of simple common sense.
It's good reading for the beach or a long plane ride where you just want some light distraction for a few hours, but don't make the mistake of trying to make sense out the plot points because by the end you'll just be frustrated by the poorly thought out conclusion.
3999281
This book is terrible. I would just skip it and find a different thriller to read.  The story never really builds its case- sure it's fast paced but there's never really any development in the rising action to constitute the climax of the book.  Once we finally reach the  "whodunnit" it's so over the top and unbelievable you just keep rolling your eyes until the end.  I mean, the kidnapper has a known history of psychological obsession with his target why wouldn't he be a suspect from the very beginning when the girl went missing?  And she couldn't survive 10 years in a basement without fresh air and sunlight.  It's dumb.
1855297
As you watch(if you can)this ridiculous thriller (and I use that term very loosely) set in the 'burbs, keep in mind Susan Sarandon helped fine-tune the script. Surely one of the greatest actresses of our generation couldn't be so desperate as to wing it down here to Australia to involve herself in this sordid mess?
The only thing this nonsense proves is that Emily Blunt is just getting started...I kept expecting to see Sharon Stone peeping over a hedge and nodding at her with approval.
3709159
The book is OK until the final chapters, when it veers off toward a cheap horror movie, with experienced police detectives doing utterly stupid, and therefore completely implausible things. The big reveal and final summation seem trite, hurried, and also not compelling. Other details just don't fit: the story is set in a small tourist town, but it seems to have an enormous police department, with many detectives. One town over, all they have is a single sheriff. It's as though the author was emulating the office politics of a big city PD, but plopped it down in the countryside. Just not believable.