From the Corner of His Eye

Rating:
Summary: Not Bad...Although...
Review: Normally I'm a huge fan of Koontz work, and though I must say that From the Corner of His Eye, did keep me engrossed all the way to the end of its almost 700 pages, I still did have some problems with it.

To begin with I think that recently Koontz has become a little bit too long winded in his writing. Perhaps, he is trying to take a page out of Stephen King's book, but his character's have never been as well developed as King's and instead I think the strength of his novels have been their constantly building suspense. This novel did strike me as the most suspenseful Koontz I've read.

I won't go into long details about the plot, but I will point out the most glaring example of bad characterization in this book. Enoch Cain, who I suppose is meant to be the primary antagonist, I found to be the most engaging character in the novel. His paradox of desiring self improvement, but at the same time destroying everything around him, I found to be very engaging. However, Koontz wanted to work in his take on quantum physics as the primary plot in his novel and therefore Cain character is taken care of in a rather unexplained way. He is simply thrust into another dimension with little or no elaboration as to how. Koontz could definitely have done more with this character.

Still, the book did keep me reading and I finished it in about 2 days. This is a testament to Koontz fast paced and engaging write style which did, even in spite of my criticisms, make up for some of the things that were lacking in this novel.

Rating:
Summary: READ AT YOUR RISK
Review: first off, i would like to state that if reading this book is your first particular experience with dean koontz's work, do not despair. he has MANY novels that are MUCH better than this one. i'm not sure what inspired this chocked-full-with-sentimentalism work, but if i was any less of an avid reader, i would have stopped reading before the 10th or so page.
THE PROS:
as always koontz relays many of his philosophies on life and the meaning of it in this novel, which i think is excellent. there is much hope, among other good feelings that many times catches you off guard and could possibly bring tears to your eyes. his character development for SOME of the characters is very good. notably the character of Junior Cain and his rather twisted yet ordered mental state.
THE CONS:
my biggest issue with this book was complete absence of any meaningful struggle of the protagonist and antagonist. the only bad guy in the whole book (Junior Cain) is dealt with by the good guys in about 1 sentance WAY towards the end. without this one character, this book would be entirely UNREADABLE. in addition, the whole book is overflowing with mushy gushy 'too perfect for ANYTHING' scenes and all these GOOD characters, who, combine to wash your mind stupid with sentimentality. everybody ends up marrying each other and there is never a quarrel or any sort of fighting on the side of the good guys. it is TOO PERFECT. i would like to think koontz's intentions were to HIGHLIGHT the good qualities of human nature here, but he does a terrible job and TOTALLY overdoes it. the book is also entirely too long, and the whole issue of the kids having 'special ablities' is totally just thrown at you towards the end. i thought on the whole this book was WEAK and totally unrepresentative of koontz's awesome work as a whole.

read: watchers, 'strangers', 'darkfall', 'night chills', 'phantoms', 'lightning', 'the face of fear', 'strange highways', 'dark rivers of the heart', 'seize the night' and 'fear nothing' to name a few EXCELLENT ones.

Rating:
Summary: Annoying
Review: I have rarely read such an annoying book. The plot is ok, and the style too, but the characters are awful.

The explanation for the behaviour of the bad guy is weak, and his actions are just ridiculous. You won't get to hate him like the one in Intensity, you'll just get to kind of dislike him and feel sorry for him, until you realize that the good characters are so annoying. At that point, you'll actually start rooting for him.
The good characters are perfect, beautiful, smart, wise, optimist, filled with love and joy, generous, caring, affectionate, open-minded, strong, courageous, sweet, saintly, goody-goody, and have pretty much every other quality you can think of.
Either Koontz is a simpleton, or there is a point to the good characters being angels of perfection, but I really don't get it.

The kids are especially annoying, 3 years olds with the wisdom and witticism of adults. I was happy when one of them became blind, but unfortunately the tragedy just made him even wiser, stronger, and more perfect. I should have stopped reading back then. I really hope the bad guy kills both of them. Or at least one. I'm still at page 489, so I don't know if he does, but I'm afraid it's not going to happen. Too bad.

Bottom line: wasted money and time. No more Koontz for me.

Rating:
Summary: Very disappointed
Review: This was the first Dean Koontz book I've read and I have to say I was quite disappointed. The last thing I would classify it as would be a thriller. I'm hesitant to read another but perhaps if someone could recommend a GOOD one...

Rating:
Summary: interesting read
Review: I'm not a big fan of Koontz but this book held me from beginning to end. Wish I could tell you my favorite part but that would give it away. I can say the kids are awesome!

Rating:
Summary: From the front of your eyes you¿ll read an interesting book
Review: This is really three separate stories for the majority of the book which link at the end.
I was actually quite bored with the Bartholomew and his mum story and almost skipped those chapters but persisted as I assumed they would link. Junior Cain chapters were riveting however and I couldn't wait for more. Junior is of course a particularly evil character without morals that will do whatever, or kill whoever he wants to best benefit himself. A detective becomes his early arch nemesis and suggests to him someone named Bartholomew will destroy him. Cain believes this more and more as time goes on and sets out to kill Bartholomew first even though he has no idea who or where he is.

Bartholomew living on a farm with his social outcast uncles is a particularly gifted boy who has a huge physical hurdle to get over when he is three (I'm not giving away with what it is). Meanwhile an African American woman is raped by a white man and gives birth to a girl named Angel. Junior of course crosses their path.

This is a great read but some of the Bartholomew sections especially in the middle of the book could have been left out or compiled into fewer shorter chapters. Following Junior's life is extremely interesting and fast paced and makes up for the slow chapters of the Bartholomew characters. All three storylines get interesting towards the end though.

This is not the best Koontz book by a long way but an average Koontz book isn't far better than most other writers. Buy others first but if you've read them all buy this.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Koontz
Review: Koontz does a great job of telling a story but doesn't he always. If you like his work then I think you will like this one as well. There are a few problems though. The ending was a little light. I was hoping for more and he just didn't deliver like normal. With that said, the characters are classic Koontz and very likeable. The story keeps you interested and has plenty of twist and turns to keep you guessing. Over all it was a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Eh
Review: I am a big fan of Mr. Kootz. This book was quite interesting and I was curious and anxious the whole way through. It is an odd read for what happens in it. To be honest, I am not a big fan of sci-fi and this was a little on the sci-fi side. No matter, Dean is still a great writer.

Rating:
Summary: A Spiritual Addition from Dean Koontz
Review: I have read many of Dean Koontz's books because I love a good suspense story. However I also love a good story about the triumph of people against all odds and about the existence of a higher power that watches over all of us. This book hit on all the things I love about literature. The evil of Junior Cain makes up for the goody-two-shoes characters that fill this book. Plus the contrast between Agnus's reaction to a horror filled childhood, which made her more compassionate, and Junior's reaction, which made him a violent disturbed individual, is a very interesting look at the complexity of human reaction and proves that no one person can be put perfectly in a category. However I do wish they had gotten a little more into Junior's past, as much as I hated him, rather than just briefly alluding to his mother's cocaine addiction. The story is very fast-moving with a spiritual context that fills the reader with so much hope that the evil adventures of Junior Cain do not make you feel lost and cynical. I agree that the ending is a bit rushed but the message is clear. There is more to this world than meets the eye.
Warning: there is a violent and disturbing rape scene in this book that may be very hard for a sensitive reader, I know it was for me. But the wonderful ending message makes up for it so grit your teeth and try to get through it.

Rating:
Summary: All Koontz with a twist¿. In a slightly different direction
Review: I am not going to rehash the whole story line, because for starters almost everyone else that has reviewed the book has, and I am going to be a little bit more positive.

This is a great story, period. In the beginning and after reading so many negative reviews, I was a little bit skeptic. As a matter of fact, after getting to about the middle of the novel, I was starting to agree with the other reviewers... good thing I was patient, armed myself with the necessary strength and finished it with more enthusiasm than originally expected.

Here Koontz explores a different kind of mystery, a little bit more "human" more spiritual and less bloody, gory and violent. It is NOT as much as sap as many want to portray the story as.

The killer/villain/dark character in the story is REAL, and because of this he achieves the desired effect of making him dangerous. The rest of the characters are very well developed and like with all of Koontz's books, there are no loose ends, and everything makes sense... within the context of the story and taking into account the "supernatural" sci-fi fantasy like story lines that so characterizes the author.

The one cons about the book is its length... 700+ pages, all of which I found out later, are very much needed and very well used. No filler content here, just a well written and interestingly intertwined story. This is perhaps the best part... how it all come together so nicely and how much sense it all makes. He thought this one out carefully and you'll be glad you picked up the book.

Mr. Koontz... keep up the good work. From here onto "By the Light of the Moon.