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Gone For Good

Gone For Good

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: More twists than a box of Twizzlers...
Review: I'm out of breath from this engrossing novel. Coben writes a book with more twists and turns than any I have ever read. You might think you have the story figured out, but trust me you don't. Perhaps, as I did, you figured out one small piece...but that is the joy the book--the surprises. Will Klein is one of the most fundamentally decent leads I have come across in quite some time. The book is engrossing, I literally could not put it down (and when I had to, I missed it!). Coben's fun and insightful prose makes the book worth more than the price. Squares, a fantastic character, deserves a book of his own. Coben has won himself a new fan and I hope many of you will join the club. Will Klein deserves that much. You will laugh, cry, and cheer. Cheesy sounding review? Maybe, but every word is true.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Qualities lurking beneath the surface...
Review: Oh, yes. The tight plot, that most writers would allow to jerk around like a fire hose out of control, but in the capable hands of Coben moves at an even pace that heightens the shock and tension to an extreme. The truly believable characters, who we know (or think we know) as well as family members by the end. Many have commented on these. As a lifelong (degreed) student of American literature, both popular and otherwise, I think it would be easy to miss the very real literary qualities hiding just under the tree decorated with standard pulp fiction ornaments. In the character of Will Klein, the vivid scenery and background of New York and New Jersey, and especially in the way the author subtly allows us to feel the emotions of the characters, I was reminded of a number of my favorite literary authors, among them Kenneth Patchen and F. Scott Fitzgerald. If this ever gets filmed (which it most certainly deserves to be and should be) I'll be first in line at the theater.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Amazing book!
Review: This is an amazing book because in every chapter there is a disclaimer of what you believed till then. The ending is one of the most unexpected i've ever read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Coben book!
Review: After Tell No One, I had to read this book, and it was phenomenal! A great read!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Yet
Review: Harlan Coban has written another deeply plotted, masterful thriller that keeps the pages turning. GONE FOR GOOD is not only full of surprises as the backgrounds and motives for each character are revealed, it also draws the reader in emotionally. Coban offers insights into the world of abuse and what it is like to grow up in families where physical and emotional abuse is the language used to teach life's lessons. Running away to a life on the streets is often the result as children attemot to escape the pain and confusion found in their own abusive environments.

It is with these young people that protagonist Will Klein works and from whom he learns vital information about his older brother, accused of murder and on the run for the last eleven years. The plot has several story lines which center around Will's relationships with, and his knowledge of, several of the novel's intriguing characters. Each character has a mysterious past which Will eventually uncovers and with those revelations come stunning surprises that make this Coban's best thriller yet. The final chapter ties all the loose ends together and brings GONE FOR GOOD to the kind of fulfilling conclusion readers of Harlan Coban's books have learned to expect.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Questionable bit...
Review: Not too shabby a story... but there's
one thing I don't understand: the main character,
Will Klein, was a self-confessed 'coward' who was
always avoiding confrontation and violence
In one part of the book, he was assaulted in his
own apartment after someone had broken into it.
Then much later into the story, he got attacked
again IN HIS OWN ROOM.
Hadn't the thought of putting up steel bars at
the door/windows, or installing a security system,
or just getting a dog ever crossed his mind after
the first attack? Come on!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A home run for Going Going Gone for Good
Review: When an author ventures out from an established pattern, fans can be both disappointed and curious. After Tell No One, I remained curious but not disappointed. With Gone for Good, I am fully convinced that the author has succeeded in demonstrating his ability to leave Myron and Win at home and let us meet new and exciting characters. Gone for Good both mesmerized me and allowed me to let my imagination run wild with guesswork on what awaits on the coming pages. A fun and innovative writing style ensures a craving for the next work by Mr. Coben.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not Coben's best
Review: I'm a HUGE fan of Harlan Coben. I LOVE the Myron Bolitar books and feel they've been getting better and better. And I also enjoyed "Tell No One," his previous non-series book.

So "Gone for Good" was a major disappointment. The plot and narrative style are too similar to "Gone for Good." The characters aren't very interesting, and for the first time Coben's writing seemed mechanical and his hero humorless.

Because the characters were not especially well-drawn, I sometimes struggled to keep up with who's who. (Example: I had to go back and review when the Las Vegas gambling addict-doctor reappeared.)

Because I didn't care about the characters, the plot twists were boring, even though I didn't anticipate most of them.

I'm also getting tired of "the perfect killer," a staple in all of Coben's work. The Win character in the Bolitar series is fun, and the killer from Korea (forgot his name) in "Tell No One" was okay, mostly because he was clearly just a plot device. But here Coben apparently wants us to find "the Ghost" interesting and even sympathetic. As far as I'm concerned, he didn't pull it off.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Read a Harlan Coben - any one
Review: Some months back, I went to a bookshop in New Delhi & found one copy of each of the Myron Bolitair series. I bought two titles as they seemed interesting. Two days later, having finished both, I went back & bought the entire lot & both the Non- Myron Bolitair books; which meant that I had cleaned out their Harlan Corben stock as they only had one copy each.
The bookshop owners then went & re-stocked many more copies of each title,

It's difficult to suggest a specific Harlan Coben Book: I found them all tremendously enjoyable. Read any one & you will be hooked. It isn't necessary to read them in any order but I would recommend that start from the first as Myron's life will then unfold as lives should.... The crimes at the heart of each book can be read in any order.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Tight and twisted
Review: Eleven years ago Julie Miller, Will Klein's former girlfriend, was raped and strangled in her basement. By Will's brother, Ken. At least, that's what the police think. And the facts certainly seem to add up. Ken hasn't been seen in his suburban New Jersey neighborhood since that night and his family's decided to consider him dead -- even if people all over the world have reported seeing him -- until Will's mother, on her deathbed, tells Will that Ken is alive. And Will finds a photograph of his brother, taken long after he supposedly died. Only days after this, Will's new girlfriend and soulmate disappears, leaving him only a note saying she'll love him always. When the FBI shows up at Covenant House, Will's place of work, and starts asking questions about his missing girlfriend, he gets worried. He's even more worried when he learns her fingerprints have been lifted from a New Mexico homicide scene. Can he, with the help of his buddy Squares (yoga guru with a boxed in Nazi symbol tatooed on his forehead), a newspaper reporter in New Mexico, Julie's little sister, and a former hooker, summon up courage he's never thought he had to unravel a tale so complicated it may cost him his life?

While GONE FOR GOOD is cleanly written, tightly plotted, and intensely absorbing, it borders on incredulity. The twists and turns are so varied and numerous as to leave the reader going "Wait a minute!" and putting the book on hold while he tries to figure out how things could have possibly worked out this way. While this is not necessarily bad, I tend to enjoy books more firmly planted in realism and not in the sort of stories that fuel national tabloids. However, I thought Will's and Square's working at the real-life Covenant House where they drive the night van that picks up homeless kids was a nice touch, even if the House has lived through some bad scandals in the last ten years. I enjoyed Will as a lead character ... and felt the characters remained true to their types, even if their types were a bit far out. And although I felt the subplot about Squares and his wife and baby (does no one in this book have a normal life?!) was unneccesary, the rest of the plot held together seamlessly.

If you enjoy tightly written thrillers with bewildering twists and turns and unguessable endings, GONE FOR GOOD is sure to please.


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