Guardian

Rating:
Summary: Good Biogenetic Werewolf Book
Review: "Guardian" is one of the least memorable books that I've read by John Saul. I had to flip back through it before I started to remember what it was all about.

It starts off in Canaan, New Jersey, where MaryAnne Carpenter lives with her two kids: 13-year-old Alison and 10-year-old Logan--but quickly moves on to Sugarloaf, Idaho, where MaryAnne's 13-year-old godchild (Joey Wilkenson) is suddenly orphaned when his parents die in separate, but suspicious, accidents. Being the godmother, MaryAnne is deemed his guardian, though it's the mysterious man living in the woods with a wolf that the title is referring to, a man Joey unknowingly has a lot in common with.

Shortly after MaryAnne and her two kids arrive on the Wilkenson's ranch, several brutal attacks occur which lead everyone to believe a wild animal is loose nearby--though MaryAnne begins to suspect something else from her moody young charge.

I'm a sucker for werewolf books, so I enjoyed "Guardian." The biogenetic twist on the mutations was a refreshing take, but a lot of the other twists weren't too surprising. The ending is left open for a possible sequel; but, so far, one hasn't been put out, though I prefer it just the way it is. If you're a Saul fan, then you'll probably enjoy this one.

Rating:
Summary: Good Biogenetic Werewolf Book
Review: "Guardian" is one of the least memorable books that I've read by John Saul. I had to flip back through it before I started to remember what it was all about.

It starts off in Canaan, New Jersey, where MaryAnne Carpenter lives with her two kids: 13-year-old Alison and 10-year-old Logan--but quickly moves on to Sugarloaf, Idaho, where MaryAnne's 13-year-old godchild (Joey Wilkenson) is suddenly orphaned when his parents die in separate, but suspicious, accidents. Being the godmother, MaryAnne is deemed his guardian, though it's the mysterious man living in the woods with a wolf that the title is referring to, a man Joey unknowingly has a lot in common with.

Shortly after MaryAnne and her two kids arrive on the Wilkenson's ranch, several brutal attacks occur which lead everyone to believe a wild animal is loose nearby--though MaryAnne begins to suspect something else from her moody young charge.

I'm a sucker for werewolf books, so I enjoyed "Guardian." The biogenetic twist on the mutations was a refreshing take, but a lot of the other twists weren't too surprising. The ending is left open for a possible sequel; but, so far, one hasn't been put out, though I prefer it just the way it is. If you're a Saul fan, then you'll probably enjoy this one.

Rating:
Summary: Abridged audiobook review - Rating 3.5
Review: 1) Pro: As usual Saul weaves a story around kids. This is his nitch and it is nice to read an author who keeps to what he/she is good at

2) Con: The abridged audiobook version of this couldn't create the same level of suspense I suspect the unabridged version or the paperback version would create

3) Pro: The performance by the reader is well done and at no time was I distracted by any shortcomings on her part

4) Con: In the abridge version it seemed like all these killing were happening and no one character was putting the clues together.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling story of an world with evil in it.
Review: Again, I was drawn into John Saul's web of words. If one reads the first three chapters, one is quite likely hooked. The whole trouble with Saul's writing is that once you're well hooked, you are likely to reach a point where you want to stop, but it is practically impossible.

The author really goes a bit over the edge this time, and during the last quarter of the book, I felt that he had gone too far in a downbeat plot development, too sad, too much of a real life nightmare some of us have. However, by the ending, I was a bit more accepting of the worst developments in the story.

The ending does leave an opening for a sequel, but I don't expect to find one or that one will be written. The open ending is good as it is because it causes one to speculate about what will happen in future generations.

So the bottom line is that, because of good story telling, I will recommend it to those who understand that this is ultra strong and does have some darn unpleasant scenes and developments in it.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling story of an world with evil in it.
Review: Again, I was drawn into John Saul's web of words. If one reads the first three chapters, one is quite likely hooked. The whole trouble with Saul's writing is that once you're well hooked, you are likely to reach a point where you want to stop, but it is practically impossible.

The author really goes a bit over the edge this time, and during the last quarter of the book, I felt that he had gone too far in a downbeat plot development, too sad, too much of a real life nightmare some of us have. However, by the ending, I was a bit more accepting of the worst developments in the story.

The ending does leave an opening for a sequel, but I don't expect to find one or that one will be written. The open ending is good as it is because it causes one to speculate about what will happen in future generations.

So the bottom line is that, because of good story telling, I will recommend it to those who understand that this is ultra strong and does have some darn unpleasant scenes and developments in it.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Do not wait for the film version of this one - enjoy it for all it's worth. Wonderfully vivid, unforgettably heart-stopping!

Rating:
Summary: GET READY! What for? You don't want to know...
Review: GUARDIAN should be read during the night....late at night so that you can experience all the shivers and rapid heart beats that you'll get from the beginning to the end. No sagging middle here. Saul is at his "visual" best again. He makes you feel the cold and despair. I will never forget the refrigerator scene as long as I live.

Rating:
Summary: great
Review: I got this book because I went into a bookshop and i had 5 minutes to pick a book i knew it was gonna be john saul cos i'd read another one of his 'when the wind blows' so i grabbed the first book i could see of his & hey presto. It is a great book with a fabulous ending i find that his books aren't sci-fi horror but they are truly scary. He wrote this book so well you could just imagine every last detail and the characters are so deep you can imagining being them, knowing their inner-most secrets

Rating:
Summary: The suspense never stops!!!!
Review: I have been a Saul fan for many years, but nothing prepared me for what I was a bout to sit down and read. Saul weaves a tapestry of suspense and evil in his thriller and it will have you gripping the pages until the last page has been turned. The entire time I was reading Gaurdian, I had to know who or what the killer was and many hours of sleep were lost finding out. Now the answer waits for Saul's next weary traveler to find out for themself. A note of caution: Take vacation time, call your friends and tell them you will be unable to reach, and take the phone off the hook...oh yeah, leave only one light on and enjoy Gaurdian to its horrifying end.

Rating:
Summary: One word: WEAK
Review: I haven't read a John Saul book in years, but I remembered him being very good, so when I saw this one at the swap meet I grabbed it right away. Unfortunately this book did not live up to my expectations. Like the previous reviewer, I fear that I may have drifted away from enjoying Saul's style.

I thought the writing in this book was really weak for the most part. Problem number 1: The plot was very basic and was stretched too thin. It may have worked as a short story or novella, but not as a 350+ page novel. Thus, in order to fill up the pages, we get lots of repetition (after reading the fifteenth detailed description of Joey's "urges," I was ready to throw the book across the room) and development of useless characters whose ONLY purpose in the story was to be killed in a gory fashion. I read the restored version of THE STAND right before this, and although THE STAND is 1200 pages long it contains far less useless/boring material than GUARDIAN.

Problem Number 2: The prose reeks of false drama. Nearly every chapter or section ended with an over-the-top dramatic sentence fragment. In addition, by the end of the book, most of the paragraphs were one-sentence dramatic statements. This is a great device to use once in a while to trigger a response in the reader, but it kills the tension when practically the entire book reads that way. I was actually laughing by the end of the book because it was getting so ridiculous.

Problem Number 3: This book is predictable! I guessed the two major "surprise" plot elements before the book was a quarter of the way through, and I am usually terrible at figuring out mysteries. Once you figure out what is going on, the story becomes a series of mindless death scenes. Again, I think this is the result of trying to stretch a perfectly good idea for a SHORT piece into an entire novel. The suspense for such a simple (and I don't mean "bad") idea just can't be credibly kept up for so long.

Problem Number 4: The end is unsatisfying, cliched, and an obvious set-up for a needless sequel. Come on John, we know you can do better than this!

I hope I'm not offending any John Saul fans out there, but I really think this novel needed more work before it was ready for primetime. The feeling I got reading this was that he was churning out a formulaic thriller simply for the sake of the dollar$ he would make. It felt like he was hardly trying. I guess that's okay, if you don't mind reading the same thing over and over from the same author, but now I'm scared to pick up any of his more recent stuff. Saul appears to have been stricken with the dreaded John Grisham Syndrome. Here's hoping he'll snap out of it soon.