Alexis' Book Blog

Breathless

Author: Dean Koontz

Year Published: 2009

Stars: 3/5

Synopsis:

There are multiple story lines in Breathless, but in the end each story feeds into one of the two main story lines. In the first tale we meet Grady, his dog Merlin and a veterinarian named Cammie. To make a long story short, they discover magical creatures and are struggling with external and internal forces to decide what to do with them. In the second story line we meet Jim and Henry, twins, who are reunited for the first time in over 10 years. Unfortunately, for one of the twins, the past 10 years hasn’t been so good. A homeless man discovers his true meaning in life in the fourth tale. Two men in Seattle plan to kill a woman and child for no reason in the fifth story and a gambler in Vegas uses chaos theory to save lives in the last story line. While some get more book time than others, these six tales converge into two main story lines leading to one life-altering event…

Why I liked it:

I love Dean Koontz. So while this was not my favorite Koontz novel of all time, there were some great parts of this story. My favorite part was the battle between Henry Rouvroy and himself. Henry is arguably the most evil character in this story and after he kills his brother and his brothers wife, he begins to feel trapped and stalked by an unknown entity. Koontz gives the audience glimpses of what the mind of a killer is like and it is not pretty (in a good way). Most people, I hope, don’t know what it’s like to think like a killer, so reading Henry’s thoughts is extremely uncomfortable and foreign. There is no author, whom I have read, that portrays a killer better than Dean Koontz.

The second reason I liked this novel was because it carries multiple story lines. These multiple story lines connect throughout the novel in a ‘Lost’ kind of way which keeps the reader interested until the last page. Learning about each character in little bits and pieces at first is frustrating because you want more detail, but as the story progresses you find you are attached to multiple characters in different story lines. Again, this book is not my favorite, but Dean Koontz is one of the best authors of our time.  

What I didn’t like:

The reason I gave this story 3/5 stars was not because the story itself was bad, but compared to other novels by Dean Koontz, it was not his best. The Good Guy, Frankenstein and The Taking are just a few of  Koontz’s best novels and Breathless was not on the same level as those novels. I like the multiple story lines in one way because it keeps you wanting to read more; however, I dislike multiple story lines because I feel true character development is never achieved. While the story itself is important, so too are the characters. And in this novel I felt that the story itself took too much away from the character development, leaving me feel a little cheated at the end. The book was very well-written, but I needed more character insight.

Little Known Fact: To date, Dean Koontz has written 58 books, with two more in the works in 2010. YAH!

Fun Fact: Dean Koontz was born in Pennsylvania, which by default makes him awesome!