Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Innocence by Dean Koontz

I was feeling nostalgic when I selected Innocence as an Early Reviewer. Dean Koontz was one of my favorite authors back in the day and it's been awhile since I've read a book by him.

I really love the premise of this book. The main character is a young man named Addison Goodheart who cannot allow himself to be seen because his face makes people want to murder him at first sight. He has no option but to live below the city and only come out at night. Coincidence (or fate?) leads him to meet a goth girl named Gwyneth whose social phobia is so intense that she can't bear to be touched. The two strike an unlikely friendship as they unite to damage the man who murdered Gwyneth's father and is determined to rape her.

Each chapter is only 3 or 4 pages long, and every other one shifts from Addison's past to the present. The constant time shifting every few pages prevented me from getting lost in the story.

I really liked this quote about dogs though:

By the example of their joy and humility, by wanting nothing more than food and play and love, by the deep satisfaction that they take from those humble things, they belie all creeds of power and fame. Although they have the teeth to tear, it is by swish of tail and yearning eyes that they most easily get what they want.

It was good but didn't recapture the magic I felt reading him as a young innocent.

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