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Innocence #1
Innocence
He lives in solitude beneath the city, an exile from society, which will destroy him if he is ever seen.
She dwells in seclusion, a fugitive from enemies who will do her harm if she is ever found.
But the bond between them runs deeper than the tragedies that have scarred their lives. Something more than chance � and nothing less than destiny � has brought them together in a world whose hour of reckoning is fast approaching.
She dwells in seclusion, a fugitive from enemies who will do her harm if she is ever found.
But the bond between them runs deeper than the tragedies that have scarred their lives. Something more than chance � and nothing less than destiny � has brought them together in a world whose hour of reckoning is fast approaching.
338 pages, Hardcover
First published January 23, 2014
2,352 people are currently reading
17k people want to read
About the author
Dean Koontz
889Ìýbooks38.6kÌýfollowersAcknowledged as "America's most popular suspense novelist" (Rolling Stone) and as one of today's most celebrated and successful writers, Dean Ray Koontz has earned the devotion of millions of readers around the world and the praise of critics everywhere for tales of character, mystery, and adventure that strike to the core of what it means to be human.
Dean, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Elsa, and the enduring spirit of their goldens, Trixie and Anna.
Facebook:
Twitter: @DeanKoontz
Website: DeanKoontz.com
Dean, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Elsa, and the enduring spirit of their goldens, Trixie and Anna.
Facebook:
Twitter: @DeanKoontz
Website: DeanKoontz.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,729 reviews
July 31, 2014
This novel was of those cases where you begin to read it and you are sure at that early point that you will give it a 5-star rating, then the story was still in the first part and there were some moments not very entertaining and then you know that you are enjoying the reading but the book will get a 4-star rating as best, but certainly not less than that, and bam! in the final "laps" of the run, in the third part, you don't understand why such a simple and enjoyable story gets so complicated and so unnecesary big, and you have no choice to give it just a 3-star rating.
Influences
It's pretty evident and even Dean Koontz made a comment on the narrative that the story has a strong influence on the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. Even, I'd say that not only the classic tale but also the popular TV adaptation of the story with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Also, I felt some feeling of the ambiance of the film City of Angels.
The style of narrative also has a style very much like the TV series Kung-Fu, or just to mention some more contemporary examples can be named the TV series Lost and American Horror Story. In the sense that you are reading the story in the "present" of it, but conveniently you get to read some chapters telling the precise events of the "past" to understand key moments of the current story.
Characters
The strongest issue on the book is the great development of characters, specially the main ones as "Addison" and "Gwyneth". Using freely an phrase of the author, the way that those two characters act, react and interact is really priceless and a very valid reason just to read the novel.
Also, the book present other mysterious characters like "The Fogs" and "The Clears", however, sadly, I don't think that the story get to explode the full potential of that kind of characters and even to validate the purpose of even being there.
The main villain, while he was really evil and he does a lot of very bad things, I think that he wasn't well used and his reason of being in the story is diminished unexpectedly.
Story
The story begins in a wonderful way, full of mysteries, with interesting characters and a good pacing of development, but suddenly in the third part got in a totally different direction and it passed from being a small event to something of world scale, and you are bombarded with so much stuff of assimilate that you want to jump away from this running train since there is too much, just too much. I got overwhelmed since it was totally unexpected that the story got so big in scale. And besides that, you feel that many of the elements of what you think was the story, they just feel now as irrelevant or without any reason. If the story was big since the beginning I may be able to accept it and embrace it, however, as I told you, the story was small, simple and enjoyable, and certainly, I can't deny that Koontz gives you hints here and there that you certainly know that something big is brewing but I don't know, when the "big" thing hit the book, it was just like that impact changed the very genre and/or type of novel that you are reading and now you are in a whole new kind of story, but just too late in the book to be able to cope about it to really enjoy it. It's sad, since I was really enjoying the experience of the novel but the final chapters totally changed my impression of the book.
Influences
It's pretty evident and even Dean Koontz made a comment on the narrative that the story has a strong influence on the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. Even, I'd say that not only the classic tale but also the popular TV adaptation of the story with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Also, I felt some feeling of the ambiance of the film City of Angels.
The style of narrative also has a style very much like the TV series Kung-Fu, or just to mention some more contemporary examples can be named the TV series Lost and American Horror Story. In the sense that you are reading the story in the "present" of it, but conveniently you get to read some chapters telling the precise events of the "past" to understand key moments of the current story.
Characters
The strongest issue on the book is the great development of characters, specially the main ones as "Addison" and "Gwyneth". Using freely an phrase of the author, the way that those two characters act, react and interact is really priceless and a very valid reason just to read the novel.
Also, the book present other mysterious characters like "The Fogs" and "The Clears", however, sadly, I don't think that the story get to explode the full potential of that kind of characters and even to validate the purpose of even being there.
The main villain, while he was really evil and he does a lot of very bad things, I think that he wasn't well used and his reason of being in the story is diminished unexpectedly.
Story
The story begins in a wonderful way, full of mysteries, with interesting characters and a good pacing of development, but suddenly in the third part got in a totally different direction and it passed from being a small event to something of world scale, and you are bombarded with so much stuff of assimilate that you want to jump away from this running train since there is too much, just too much. I got overwhelmed since it was totally unexpected that the story got so big in scale. And besides that, you feel that many of the elements of what you think was the story, they just feel now as irrelevant or without any reason. If the story was big since the beginning I may be able to accept it and embrace it, however, as I told you, the story was small, simple and enjoyable, and certainly, I can't deny that Koontz gives you hints here and there that you certainly know that something big is brewing but I don't know, when the "big" thing hit the book, it was just like that impact changed the very genre and/or type of novel that you are reading and now you are in a whole new kind of story, but just too late in the book to be able to cope about it to really enjoy it. It's sad, since I was really enjoying the experience of the novel but the final chapters totally changed my impression of the book.
May 31, 2024
"The sky shed itself as heavily as it had on Cathedral Hill, such blinding crystalline thickets that I couldn't see farther shore, as if snow meant for decades were released today because the world did not have decades left until its end."
"With cloaks and robes and cerements of white whirling and swooning in every quarter, the city looked as if it must be populated by more ghosts than living people, and all those spirits were agitated in their haunting."
Effortlessly flowing yet meticulously crafted paragraphs, often containing beautiful phrasing and even more beautiful meaning, pepper this tender story of a young man so hideous he is forced to live below ground, and a young women in great danger whose social phobia precludes her being touched. Dean Koontz is actually gifting to readers a tender and wintery allegory about mankind turning away from goodness and innocence, and the consequences.
I struggled a great deal with how to approach this review. It’s obvious that a lot of readers either misunderstood this book, and therefore didn’t like it, or understood it completely, and therefore hated it because it made them uncomfortable. A few thought it had its moments, yet went astray near the end. Part of that may be because on the surface Koontz is telling such an involving, heartrending story that the old-fashioned, yet incredibly relevant-for-our-time allegory felt like an intrusion. There is simply no way to talk about this beautiful and brilliant book without addressing the larger allegory, and my take as a reader on it. As with any allegory, interpretations can differ, but many things are obvious. I won’t mark this review as a SPOILER, but in essence, it probably is. So if you don’t want to know what’s inside this book, and how I felt about it, stop reading now, and read the book instead, then come back. And now you’ve been warned!
The story on the surface is a tender one, filled with heartbreaking moments which resonate for anyone sensitive enough to empathize with Addison and Gwyneth. What lies beneath that story is profoundly beautiful, and perhaps a little frightening â€� despite the hopeful tone of the ending. Koontz has woven piercing social commentary into this tragic, almost fairy-tale like romance. As one Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reviewer from Costa Rica astutely noted, there is the feel of the old Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman television series, Beauty and the Beast, and also a Nicholas Cage/Meg Ryan, City of Angels vibe.
The reader is immediately swept up into the heartbreak of Addison’s world, and his loneliness and isolation from the rest of humankind. Koontz draws the reader into his world so deftly that what he is really doing, the story Koontz is “really� telling, is somewhat obscured beneath the snowy, wintery landscape, and the bleak situation of Addison Goodheart. Koontz’s portrait of how far society has fallen, to a point where goodness and hope and truth are derided, and depravity embraced, is so on target that it could only have been told by someone with the willingness � and the publishing juice � to accurately paint the deplorable state of mankind:
"But insanity is everywhere these days, and celebrated. Insanity is rapidly becoming the new normal." (this exact sentiment is echoed in Koontz's The Whispering Room)
"Everyone talks about justice, but there can be no justice where there is no truth, and these are times when truth is seldom recognized and often despised."
"Great power could be a beautiful thing when men and women who had it were inclined to use it wisely and with kindness. When a leader used his power over the ruled for the purpose of settling scores and inflating self-esteem, for remaking society according to his own grand designs, class warfare and genocide ensued."
"In the end, for all of their kind, it's about the same thing—power. Having power over others, to tell you what to do, to take what you have, to use you any way they wish, to demean you and break you and make you obey, and finally to rob you of your faith in truth, make you despair that there's no hope and never was."
Now that’s out of the way, let’s first deal with the literal story, in all its tender beauty. Addison has lost his father, the only person who ever loved him. He remains beneath the city during the day, alone now, and is almost an observer of mankind by night:
"Those of us who remain hidden from everyone else, however, know that this world is wondrous and filled with mysteries. We possess no magical perception, no psychic insight. I believe our recognition of reality's complex dimensions is a consequence of our solitude."
Soon the narrative moves back and forth between present and past. We learn of Addison as a child, and his mother, who finally has to cut him lose:
"I could not but love her and wish that she could love a thing like me."
"Weeping as bitterly as I had ever wept—or ever would—I left the house and didn't look back. I grieved, although not because of either my condition or my lean prospects. I grieved for her because I knew that she didn't hate me, that she hated herself. She despised herself not for bringing me into the world in the first place, more than eight years earlier, but for turning me out into it now."
All of Addison’s interactions with man both as a child and as an adult show humanity and society in free fall. When as a boy he finds his “Father� Addison is finally no longer alone. They forge a life separate from society, who cannot bear to look at them, and who try to kill them upon sight. There is something hideous about Addison and his father, something so grotesque it at first suggests evil. Yet Addison appears to be gentle and kind, filled with goodness, and even living as he does, he harbors no ill will, and only has hope. It’s the reader’s first clue that something more is happening here than we realize, because the eyes are but a window to the soul:
"We don't know what those of the aboveground would do to our cadavers. But considering the violence most of them visit upon us on sight, we assume they might commit abominations beyond our imagining. We stand and die with courage when cornered, but we do not—must never—let them take our dignity in death."
In the present, Addison meets a girl named Gwyneth who is being pursued at the library after hours:
"From there I returned to my windowless rooms, now mine and mine alone. For the subsequent six years, I secretly moved through the city, diminished by solitude, until one night in the central library, I saw a running girl dressed in black but no less graceful than snow in motion."
A friendship is formed, she agreeing not to look upon his face, and he agreeing to give her physical space:
"Our relationship was delicate, perhaps no less so than the crystal intimacy of those first huge snowflakes that had spiraled around me in the Commons."
"Already I loved her. I would be content to love her all of my life without touching her, but I saw no indication that she loved me in the same way, or at all."
Gwyneth’s situation is as precarious as Addison’s. For those who’ve ever read The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane, you will see the similarity in the way her father provided for her upon his death, with secreted apartments all over the city so she would be safe, and free to live her own life. But there is a man the personification of degradation out to kill her, and marionettes her father made that may also be watching, and harbor ill will. Because Addison has come across one of the marionettes in a store window years before, and an evil music box, we realize instantly that somehow Addison and Gwyneth were connected long before they met. There is some stuff with the marionettes which is particularly creepy � I hate clowns, ventriloquist dolls, and marionettes!
The more Addison and Gwyneth are pursued, and the more danger they are in, the more Addison comes to adore her:
"Considering her social phobia, if she were to suspect the depth of my feelings for her, she might recoil, retreat, and banish me. She might not be capable of loving me as I already loved her, let alone in the more profound way that I would surely come to love her over time."
"I drew hope from the fact that she had clearly loved her father, and I needed that hope because, after living my life with one loss after another, losing this might at last break me."
Addison does not tell Gwyneth about the Fogs, or the Clears, which apparently only he can see, because he does not want her to think him mad as well as hideous. Addison knows the Fogs are bad, disturbingly so, but as his father taught him, even the Clears are to be feared, and should not be looked upon directly. But there are clues which relate to the allegory. While helping Gwyneth, Addison, in a disturbing scene, views a pedophile about to watch one of his videos in the privacy of his home, when a Fog invades the man rather than kill him. The man then continues on with what he was doing, as though nothing grotesque had happened to him. It was obvious these were demons, and of particular note that free will had play, because the man made a choice, and it was not until after he chose that the Fog came to reside inside the man. In essence, evil found a willing host...
From that point forward, which was fairly early on in the narrative, I believe, there was not a single doubt that this was an allegory, and there were two stories here � the one on the surface, and a much larger one beneath. You realize then that it is cold and wintery throughout the story not only because it is winter, and Christmas is approaching, but because man’s heart has grown cold, and far from his Creator. But what of the Clears? Why are they in hospital garb? There is a clue in T.S. Elliot, but a much bigger one when Addison sees the Clears looking this way and that in the street. He senses in a way he can’t explain that they are trying to hold something back � what, he does not know. Any discerning reader will guess that it’s the Four Winds, and that final plague�
Yes, this is an allegory about Armageddon, and a point reached where man, of his own free will, has fallen too far to be redeemed. But there is hope, as there always is in a Koontz novel, and of course dogs, who are blameless. Koontz uses Addison and Gwyneth, a young girl in a coma, and a handful of children who, like Addison, are “immune� to the final plague being brought upon debauched humankind, to uplift the reader, provide an olive branch of hope. The story is exciting, moving, heartbreaking, and on a few occasions, quite eerie. A scene where the Clears hover above the city and ache for it to be different is particularly disturbing. Because to interfere, is to interfere with man’s free will, and it is this path mankind has chosen, until starting over is the only option�
This is a tender, beautiful story with moving moments, staggeringly lovely passages, and great thrills. It is also, despite the cataclysmic allegory beneath, hopeful. I don’t usually care for allegories as a rule, but this one was brilliant, and could not have been more relevant for the times in which we live, in which there is a war going on between Good (God) and Evil (Satan), and people are either knowingly or unknowingly, choosing their side.
“There is no end of wonders and mysteries: fireflies and music boxes, the stars that outnumber all the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world, pin-head eggs that become caterpillars that dissolve into genetic soup from which arise butterflies, that some hearts are dark and others full of light.�
"With cloaks and robes and cerements of white whirling and swooning in every quarter, the city looked as if it must be populated by more ghosts than living people, and all those spirits were agitated in their haunting."
Effortlessly flowing yet meticulously crafted paragraphs, often containing beautiful phrasing and even more beautiful meaning, pepper this tender story of a young man so hideous he is forced to live below ground, and a young women in great danger whose social phobia precludes her being touched. Dean Koontz is actually gifting to readers a tender and wintery allegory about mankind turning away from goodness and innocence, and the consequences.
I struggled a great deal with how to approach this review. It’s obvious that a lot of readers either misunderstood this book, and therefore didn’t like it, or understood it completely, and therefore hated it because it made them uncomfortable. A few thought it had its moments, yet went astray near the end. Part of that may be because on the surface Koontz is telling such an involving, heartrending story that the old-fashioned, yet incredibly relevant-for-our-time allegory felt like an intrusion. There is simply no way to talk about this beautiful and brilliant book without addressing the larger allegory, and my take as a reader on it. As with any allegory, interpretations can differ, but many things are obvious. I won’t mark this review as a SPOILER, but in essence, it probably is. So if you don’t want to know what’s inside this book, and how I felt about it, stop reading now, and read the book instead, then come back. And now you’ve been warned!
The story on the surface is a tender one, filled with heartbreaking moments which resonate for anyone sensitive enough to empathize with Addison and Gwyneth. What lies beneath that story is profoundly beautiful, and perhaps a little frightening â€� despite the hopeful tone of the ending. Koontz has woven piercing social commentary into this tragic, almost fairy-tale like romance. As one Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reviewer from Costa Rica astutely noted, there is the feel of the old Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman television series, Beauty and the Beast, and also a Nicholas Cage/Meg Ryan, City of Angels vibe.
The reader is immediately swept up into the heartbreak of Addison’s world, and his loneliness and isolation from the rest of humankind. Koontz draws the reader into his world so deftly that what he is really doing, the story Koontz is “really� telling, is somewhat obscured beneath the snowy, wintery landscape, and the bleak situation of Addison Goodheart. Koontz’s portrait of how far society has fallen, to a point where goodness and hope and truth are derided, and depravity embraced, is so on target that it could only have been told by someone with the willingness � and the publishing juice � to accurately paint the deplorable state of mankind:
"But insanity is everywhere these days, and celebrated. Insanity is rapidly becoming the new normal." (this exact sentiment is echoed in Koontz's The Whispering Room)
"Everyone talks about justice, but there can be no justice where there is no truth, and these are times when truth is seldom recognized and often despised."
"Great power could be a beautiful thing when men and women who had it were inclined to use it wisely and with kindness. When a leader used his power over the ruled for the purpose of settling scores and inflating self-esteem, for remaking society according to his own grand designs, class warfare and genocide ensued."
"In the end, for all of their kind, it's about the same thing—power. Having power over others, to tell you what to do, to take what you have, to use you any way they wish, to demean you and break you and make you obey, and finally to rob you of your faith in truth, make you despair that there's no hope and never was."
Now that’s out of the way, let’s first deal with the literal story, in all its tender beauty. Addison has lost his father, the only person who ever loved him. He remains beneath the city during the day, alone now, and is almost an observer of mankind by night:
"Those of us who remain hidden from everyone else, however, know that this world is wondrous and filled with mysteries. We possess no magical perception, no psychic insight. I believe our recognition of reality's complex dimensions is a consequence of our solitude."
Soon the narrative moves back and forth between present and past. We learn of Addison as a child, and his mother, who finally has to cut him lose:
"I could not but love her and wish that she could love a thing like me."
"Weeping as bitterly as I had ever wept—or ever would—I left the house and didn't look back. I grieved, although not because of either my condition or my lean prospects. I grieved for her because I knew that she didn't hate me, that she hated herself. She despised herself not for bringing me into the world in the first place, more than eight years earlier, but for turning me out into it now."
All of Addison’s interactions with man both as a child and as an adult show humanity and society in free fall. When as a boy he finds his “Father� Addison is finally no longer alone. They forge a life separate from society, who cannot bear to look at them, and who try to kill them upon sight. There is something hideous about Addison and his father, something so grotesque it at first suggests evil. Yet Addison appears to be gentle and kind, filled with goodness, and even living as he does, he harbors no ill will, and only has hope. It’s the reader’s first clue that something more is happening here than we realize, because the eyes are but a window to the soul:
"We don't know what those of the aboveground would do to our cadavers. But considering the violence most of them visit upon us on sight, we assume they might commit abominations beyond our imagining. We stand and die with courage when cornered, but we do not—must never—let them take our dignity in death."
In the present, Addison meets a girl named Gwyneth who is being pursued at the library after hours:
"From there I returned to my windowless rooms, now mine and mine alone. For the subsequent six years, I secretly moved through the city, diminished by solitude, until one night in the central library, I saw a running girl dressed in black but no less graceful than snow in motion."
A friendship is formed, she agreeing not to look upon his face, and he agreeing to give her physical space:
"Our relationship was delicate, perhaps no less so than the crystal intimacy of those first huge snowflakes that had spiraled around me in the Commons."
"Already I loved her. I would be content to love her all of my life without touching her, but I saw no indication that she loved me in the same way, or at all."
Gwyneth’s situation is as precarious as Addison’s. For those who’ve ever read The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane, you will see the similarity in the way her father provided for her upon his death, with secreted apartments all over the city so she would be safe, and free to live her own life. But there is a man the personification of degradation out to kill her, and marionettes her father made that may also be watching, and harbor ill will. Because Addison has come across one of the marionettes in a store window years before, and an evil music box, we realize instantly that somehow Addison and Gwyneth were connected long before they met. There is some stuff with the marionettes which is particularly creepy � I hate clowns, ventriloquist dolls, and marionettes!
The more Addison and Gwyneth are pursued, and the more danger they are in, the more Addison comes to adore her:
"Considering her social phobia, if she were to suspect the depth of my feelings for her, she might recoil, retreat, and banish me. She might not be capable of loving me as I already loved her, let alone in the more profound way that I would surely come to love her over time."
"I drew hope from the fact that she had clearly loved her father, and I needed that hope because, after living my life with one loss after another, losing this might at last break me."
Addison does not tell Gwyneth about the Fogs, or the Clears, which apparently only he can see, because he does not want her to think him mad as well as hideous. Addison knows the Fogs are bad, disturbingly so, but as his father taught him, even the Clears are to be feared, and should not be looked upon directly. But there are clues which relate to the allegory. While helping Gwyneth, Addison, in a disturbing scene, views a pedophile about to watch one of his videos in the privacy of his home, when a Fog invades the man rather than kill him. The man then continues on with what he was doing, as though nothing grotesque had happened to him. It was obvious these were demons, and of particular note that free will had play, because the man made a choice, and it was not until after he chose that the Fog came to reside inside the man. In essence, evil found a willing host...
From that point forward, which was fairly early on in the narrative, I believe, there was not a single doubt that this was an allegory, and there were two stories here � the one on the surface, and a much larger one beneath. You realize then that it is cold and wintery throughout the story not only because it is winter, and Christmas is approaching, but because man’s heart has grown cold, and far from his Creator. But what of the Clears? Why are they in hospital garb? There is a clue in T.S. Elliot, but a much bigger one when Addison sees the Clears looking this way and that in the street. He senses in a way he can’t explain that they are trying to hold something back � what, he does not know. Any discerning reader will guess that it’s the Four Winds, and that final plague�
Yes, this is an allegory about Armageddon, and a point reached where man, of his own free will, has fallen too far to be redeemed. But there is hope, as there always is in a Koontz novel, and of course dogs, who are blameless. Koontz uses Addison and Gwyneth, a young girl in a coma, and a handful of children who, like Addison, are “immune� to the final plague being brought upon debauched humankind, to uplift the reader, provide an olive branch of hope. The story is exciting, moving, heartbreaking, and on a few occasions, quite eerie. A scene where the Clears hover above the city and ache for it to be different is particularly disturbing. Because to interfere, is to interfere with man’s free will, and it is this path mankind has chosen, until starting over is the only option�
This is a tender, beautiful story with moving moments, staggeringly lovely passages, and great thrills. It is also, despite the cataclysmic allegory beneath, hopeful. I don’t usually care for allegories as a rule, but this one was brilliant, and could not have been more relevant for the times in which we live, in which there is a war going on between Good (God) and Evil (Satan), and people are either knowingly or unknowingly, choosing their side.
“There is no end of wonders and mysteries: fireflies and music boxes, the stars that outnumber all the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world, pin-head eggs that become caterpillars that dissolve into genetic soup from which arise butterflies, that some hearts are dark and others full of light.�
December 13, 2013
What started off as a lyrical story of a boy rejected and tormented by the society, ended up in a completely mind-blowing way. Koontz took his already skilled, captivating and meaningful prose to a whole new level of *what-the-f**k-have-I-just-read*. This book is not what it initially seems to be. It's so much more than that. It's different from his previous novels - and, boy, you won't believe just HOW different it is! I know it will stay with me for a very long time and I will probably never be able to stop thinking about it.
August 1, 2023
This book is bizarre—even for Dean Koontz.
One of the most disorienting elements is the erratic pacing. The flashbacks are extremely hit or miss.
Addison’s character development is solid, but the rest of the cast come off as parodies of characters. Too much archetypal representation.
The Fog and Clear thing is…bewildering.
Once the true premise is actually revealed, it’s very much a WTF moment. The novel just doesn’t support a theme that is as massive as Good vs. Evil.
Koontz is selling some weird stuff in this one—and I’m just not buying it.
One of the most disorienting elements is the erratic pacing. The flashbacks are extremely hit or miss.
Addison’s character development is solid, but the rest of the cast come off as parodies of characters. Too much archetypal representation.
The Fog and Clear thing is…bewildering.
Once the true premise is actually revealed, it’s very much a WTF moment. The novel just doesn’t support a theme that is as massive as Good vs. Evil.
Koontz is selling some weird stuff in this one—and I’m just not buying it.
January 16, 2014
Dean Koontz's latest novel is a little better than most of his recent works, but is still not a good book. I read it because my curiosity got better of me - the book actually got good reviews, and for the first time in years more people on Amazon gave it a positive rating rather than the negative - so I had to see for myself.
All of Koontz's novels are stories of the ancient conflict of good versus evil, and it seems to me that the closer he gets to knocking on heaven's door the more he's into spirituality and all that wacky stuff (I guess decades of living in southern California also play their part). It's no different with Innocence, which is essentially a fable presented as a suspense novel - it's a retelling of the Beauty of the Beast, which gets name dropped in the text, and one so dependent on flashbacks that nothing really happens throughout the whole text with its pacing of a glacier. This thing is slow.
Addison Goodheart (I'm not kidding, that's the name of the main character) - is a person so deformed that whoever sees him has an instant urge to hurt and batter him, to the point of murder. Exiled from his home by his own mother who could not stand the sight of him, he was adopted by a man who had the same condition - and who was killed in front of his eyes because of the way he looks. To survive, Addison spends his days in an abandoned bomb shelter in an unnamed city and only ventures out at night - to steal some food to restock his supplies, and sneak into the local library to read at night. One day he discovers that he's not alone there, and fate (with a little help of Dean Koontz) throws him with Gwyneth, a young goth girl who's in great danger - she's pursued by a man who killed her father (fathers don't make it far in this book), and who's a stock Koontz villain - a despicable man with rape fantasies (these things get old after a while too). Addison falls in love with Gwyneth on the spot, and vows to give her all the help he can, while he's not busy being worried about the situation in the Middle East (for someone living in a bomb shelter the main protagonist sure reflects a lot of what are probably Dean Koontz's personal beliefts - but I'm not saying anything).
Innocence is almost a textbook example of how not to write a suspense novel - the language is obviously carefully polished - but to the point of sounding artificial and fake. All of Dean Koontz's characters sound like Dean Koontz and his ideas about how characters like that should sound - there's little to Distinguish Addison from Odd Thomas, Koontz's most popular creation, and the female character is obviously modeled after his beloved wife Gerda (which I think is very sweet, but doesn't make for good writing nonetheless). Despite these flaws, Koontz does manage to set up a certain mood in the opening chapters - only to destroy it with the bad puns he just cannot resist (when a book falls down Addison remarks that someone must be using the weapon of knowledge in an unconventional fashion. ARGGGH). Koontz also constantly holds the reader's hand to make sure that they don't miss anything - he openly names the story of the Beauty and the Beast so that the reader doesn't miss the analogy, and when Gwyneth is being harsh to a character he actually explains that the tone of her voice means that she's being harsh to that character. It's as if he not only didn't trust his readers to not understand the simplest metaphors and analogies that he uses but also didn't trust his own characters to say what he told them to say.
Perhaps the novel's worst offense is its unrepentant use of flashbacks, which do really take away any small spark that this story might otherwise have ignited and instead from making the reader want to race to its end make him feel as if he's stuck in some kind of a literary bog. The whole novel is narrated in the first person, which is especially bad as it single-handedly breaks the narrative flow and jumps between one uninteresting event and another. Instead of tracing the characters' journey in real time, their stories are dependent entirely on the flashback that Addison narrates, which take up whole chapters - however short they might be. The flashbacks begin with a moment of textbook dramatism ("on a night of heavy snow...") and end with an obligatory cliffhanger, while another story slowly takes shape in the main chapters. For a novel which has so many chapters, not much really happens - I can think of only a few events which somehow took hundreds of pages to take place. It's all stretched beyond dimensions and feels boring and slow.
The book ends totally out of the left field, and not in a good way - the ending is a surprise but then it shouldn't be considering most of Koontz's recent novels (at least these published since the early 00's), which made me wonder if he's secretly gearing up to write a couple more volumes for the Left Behind franchise, which is one series I'm glad to have missed out on. It might be unexpected but not in a good way - certainly not for me.
The whole book feels incomplete, as it lacked a sense of purpose or clear direction, and was more of a bunch of ideas sewn together rather than a work which came out of inspiration and subsequent careful thought. It's readable but that's about the best I can say about it - I won't recommend it and can safely say that no reader will miss anything if they won't read it, and if they're curious about Koontz they'd do much better to read his earlier novels. They're cheesy but fun, in a way the 80's tv movies were. Innocence is a bit cheesy but no fun, and mostly it's unremarkable and forgettable rather quickly.
On the other hand, with Dean Koontz talking about his experiences with reading books as a young boy, and how his passion got him where he is now. I might not like most of his new books and not like much about his old ones, but there's no question that he has worked really hard for his success and seems like a genuinely nice and sweet guy, and one that I'd like to have dinner and conversation with (even if his books do make him come out as a paranoid recluse who has kind of lost touch with the world outside). If I only liked his books more...
All of Koontz's novels are stories of the ancient conflict of good versus evil, and it seems to me that the closer he gets to knocking on heaven's door the more he's into spirituality and all that wacky stuff (I guess decades of living in southern California also play their part). It's no different with Innocence, which is essentially a fable presented as a suspense novel - it's a retelling of the Beauty of the Beast, which gets name dropped in the text, and one so dependent on flashbacks that nothing really happens throughout the whole text with its pacing of a glacier. This thing is slow.
Addison Goodheart (I'm not kidding, that's the name of the main character) - is a person so deformed that whoever sees him has an instant urge to hurt and batter him, to the point of murder. Exiled from his home by his own mother who could not stand the sight of him, he was adopted by a man who had the same condition - and who was killed in front of his eyes because of the way he looks. To survive, Addison spends his days in an abandoned bomb shelter in an unnamed city and only ventures out at night - to steal some food to restock his supplies, and sneak into the local library to read at night. One day he discovers that he's not alone there, and fate (with a little help of Dean Koontz) throws him with Gwyneth, a young goth girl who's in great danger - she's pursued by a man who killed her father (fathers don't make it far in this book), and who's a stock Koontz villain - a despicable man with rape fantasies (these things get old after a while too). Addison falls in love with Gwyneth on the spot, and vows to give her all the help he can, while he's not busy being worried about the situation in the Middle East (for someone living in a bomb shelter the main protagonist sure reflects a lot of what are probably Dean Koontz's personal beliefts - but I'm not saying anything).
Innocence is almost a textbook example of how not to write a suspense novel - the language is obviously carefully polished - but to the point of sounding artificial and fake. All of Dean Koontz's characters sound like Dean Koontz and his ideas about how characters like that should sound - there's little to Distinguish Addison from Odd Thomas, Koontz's most popular creation, and the female character is obviously modeled after his beloved wife Gerda (which I think is very sweet, but doesn't make for good writing nonetheless). Despite these flaws, Koontz does manage to set up a certain mood in the opening chapters - only to destroy it with the bad puns he just cannot resist (when a book falls down Addison remarks that someone must be using the weapon of knowledge in an unconventional fashion. ARGGGH). Koontz also constantly holds the reader's hand to make sure that they don't miss anything - he openly names the story of the Beauty and the Beast so that the reader doesn't miss the analogy, and when Gwyneth is being harsh to a character he actually explains that the tone of her voice means that she's being harsh to that character. It's as if he not only didn't trust his readers to not understand the simplest metaphors and analogies that he uses but also didn't trust his own characters to say what he told them to say.
Perhaps the novel's worst offense is its unrepentant use of flashbacks, which do really take away any small spark that this story might otherwise have ignited and instead from making the reader want to race to its end make him feel as if he's stuck in some kind of a literary bog. The whole novel is narrated in the first person, which is especially bad as it single-handedly breaks the narrative flow and jumps between one uninteresting event and another. Instead of tracing the characters' journey in real time, their stories are dependent entirely on the flashback that Addison narrates, which take up whole chapters - however short they might be. The flashbacks begin with a moment of textbook dramatism ("on a night of heavy snow...") and end with an obligatory cliffhanger, while another story slowly takes shape in the main chapters. For a novel which has so many chapters, not much really happens - I can think of only a few events which somehow took hundreds of pages to take place. It's all stretched beyond dimensions and feels boring and slow.
The book ends totally out of the left field, and not in a good way - the ending is a surprise but then it shouldn't be considering most of Koontz's recent novels (at least these published since the early 00's), which made me wonder if he's secretly gearing up to write a couple more volumes for the Left Behind franchise, which is one series I'm glad to have missed out on. It might be unexpected but not in a good way - certainly not for me.
The whole book feels incomplete, as it lacked a sense of purpose or clear direction, and was more of a bunch of ideas sewn together rather than a work which came out of inspiration and subsequent careful thought. It's readable but that's about the best I can say about it - I won't recommend it and can safely say that no reader will miss anything if they won't read it, and if they're curious about Koontz they'd do much better to read his earlier novels. They're cheesy but fun, in a way the 80's tv movies were. Innocence is a bit cheesy but no fun, and mostly it's unremarkable and forgettable rather quickly.
On the other hand, with Dean Koontz talking about his experiences with reading books as a young boy, and how his passion got him where he is now. I might not like most of his new books and not like much about his old ones, but there's no question that he has worked really hard for his success and seems like a genuinely nice and sweet guy, and one that I'd like to have dinner and conversation with (even if his books do make him come out as a paranoid recluse who has kind of lost touch with the world outside). If I only liked his books more...
November 18, 2015
I don't know how I feel about this book. I liked it, I love so many of Koontz books, but I don't know. Sometimes I think it's because I'm tired or in some kind of mood that a book doesn't hit me the right way. Or maybe I just liked it okay and there is no other reason, but you, the reader of this review.. why should you care? Read what you want and decide for yourself :)
This book is sorta like Beauty & the Beast.
But it's not like Addison (beast) goes out defending Gwyneth (beauty) because bad guys are after her. He's just there with her.
Okay, let me backtrack, first the book does go back and forth between how Addison grew up and the here and now with Gwyn.
When Addison was born the midwife tried to kill him because of whatever is on his face and hands and his eyes. Well, that was short lived as his mother told the midwife at gunpoint to get out!
Unfortunately, at the age of eight, Addison's mom kicks him out of their home in the woods because a hunter saw him and tried to kill him. She gave him money and foot and told him kind of what to do. So, this poor little boy sets out on his own. He finds his way onto the back of a truck and gets brought into the City. Oh joy! Where there are killers galore! Addison keeps gloves on and a hoodie over his face and eyes.
Addison almost gets killed by burning when he is saved by a man he soon calls father. He lives with him for many years until they are caught out in the snow playing (only at night) and his father was killed by cops! COPS! because they saw what his father looked like... forgot to mention he's just like Addison.. makes you wonder. This poor boy has to take this man back underground where they live in the tunnels and sets him out to sea. I felt so bad for both of them. People just suck!!!!
So Addison is traveling the streets a lone...
Addison can also see things he calls the clears and the fogs. His dad told him to never look one in the eye and the fogs were evil. I still don't know what in the crap they are! If someone knows, please inform me.
Addison creeps into the library one night because he has a talent for knowing how to get into all of these places. This is where he finds Gwyn, she is running from a man. Come to find out this man is a jerk that killed her father and tried to rape her when she was little.
Anyway, they meet, become friends and Gwyn drags Addison into her world where this man is trying to kill her because she knows the truth and he thought she was in a mental institute. Her wonderful dad set up all kinds of apartments and places to live and had her guardian tell that tale so she wouldn't be come after by anyone. He had this feeling he might die. He was such a nice man because Gwyn had a disorder of being around people, but he didn't send her off and force meds on her and all that junk. He let her be as she was, incredibly smart she was too. Anyway, she only went out mostly at night like Addison.
So, they go through all of this stuff that I'm not going to tell you. Some people get killed. Some other strange stuff happens that I don't even know how to explain. Most of the end of the book has me confused. :( I do like that Addison and Gwyn seem to live happily ever after out in the woods with kids and other strange things going on. What was going on? Someone tell me what was up with the ending?
April 7, 2020
Innocence was the Koontzland - Dean Koontz Group Read for January 2020. I had promised to give this another try once it was selected as a Koontzland Group Read again. Here we are over 6 years later. I believe perceptions can change. I enjoy reading my favorite books again and again just like I enjoy listening to my favorite songs and re-watching my favorite films.
Reading the second time, I already knew how this story ended - and that was my biggest disappointment with my initial reading. For this book, I really have to get in the right mindset to appreciate what the story has to offer.
I didn't finish until April when the world-wide impact of COVID-19 allowed me more time for reading. Of course with our current crisis, I saw many similarities to events in Innocence: a character that wears a mask, several characters self isolating, a virus impacting world-wide, the idea of an apocalypse.
Here are a few relevant passages which brought to mind the film, Contagion and COVID-19:
"Ebola virus, Lone Ranger, and flesh-eating bacteria, and way pumped up, the shit's totally enhanced, airborne, they say worse than atom bombs. It eats you up from the inside out. How's that for bad?"
_______
"The bathroom, hot water, soap, wash yourself," and she said, "Move, move, now, let's go."
_______
"Do you have sanitizing gel in the glove box, anything, do you have anything?"
_______
"Addison, I assume you know what has come into the world."
"A plague, you mean."
"The plague, I think, after which the long war between mankind and microbes will have ended."
_______
"It'll be worse than bad. Latest word is that they engineered the weapon, the bug, for a 98-percent mortality rat. It exceeded their expectations. Then they lost control of it."
__________________
Favorite Passages:
The music seemed to issue from the air, as if passing through a membrane from another, unseen world parallel to ours.
Perhaps those who lived in the open would have found the idea of an invisible world too fanciful and would have dismissed the notion.
Those of us who remain hidden from everyone else, however, know that this world is wondrous and filled with mysteries. We possess no magical perception, no psychic insight. I believe our recognition of reality's complex dimensions is a consequence of our solitude .
To live in the city of crowds and traffic and constant noise, to be always striving, to be in the ceaseless competition for money and status and power, perhaps distracted the mind until it could no longer see - and forgot - the all that is. Or maybe, because of the pace and pressure of that life, sanity depended on blinding oneself to the manifold miracles, astonishments, wonders, and enigmas that comprised the true world.
_________
I favored a theory involving the unseen world parallel to ours that I mentioned earlier. If such a place existed, separated from us by a membrane we couldn't detect with our five senses, then perhaps at some points along the continuum, the membrane bulged around a small part of that other reality and folded it into the stuff of ours. And if both worlds, in their becoming, arose from the same loving source, I liked to believe that such secret havens as this would be provided especially for those who, like me, were outcasts by no fault of their own, reviled and hunted, and in desperate need of shelter.
_______
The more familiar that a place becomes, the more mysterious it becomes, as well, if you are alert to the truth of things. I have found this to be the case all of my life.
_______
As I crossed the yard, the wind made dead leaves caper at my feet, in the way that small animals, familiars to a witch, might dance around she whom they served.
_______
The clump-and-thud of avalanching books suggested that someone must be using the weapon of knowledge in an unconventional fashion.
_______
. . . they were all selfish perverts when you really got to know them.
_______
I had remained hopeful that, among the millions on this Earth, there might be a few who could summon the courage to know me for what I am and have the self-confidence to still walk part of this life with me. The girl, mysterious in her own right, was the first in a long time who seemed as if she might have that capacity.
_______
The fallow soil of loneliness is fertile ground for self-deception.
_______
"People have lost their history, the what and how and why of things. They know so little of the places where they live."
_______
"If I touch you, you'll pull the hood off my head. Or if instead you make the first move and pull the hood off my head, then I'll touch you. We hold each other hostage to our eccentricities."
I smiled again, an unseen smile. "We're made for each other."
_______
. . . I wanted more than peace and survival. I felt that I had a purpose that could be fulfilled only elsewhere . . .
_______
. . . electrified by a sense of possibilities that might transform in positive ways . . .
________
To one degree or another, I have been happy most of my life, in part because the world has infinite charms if you wish to see them.
_______
Sometimes your life rolls away with you, like a big stone going downhill fast . . .
_______
. . . the seams of my life were split, and I didn't believe that I could sew them up again.
_______
In spite of my yearnings, I remained satisfied not to pursue the impossible and to settle for the miraculous.
_______
. . . I thought that perhaps she lived in a different dimension form mine and was capable of exploring this world, though I could not cross into hers.
_______
Insanity is rapidly becoming the new normal.
_______
"The flame delights the moth before the wings burn."
_______
. . . in reality we, too, were speeding forward aboard the train of time, on different journeys . . .
_______
. . . sorrow like a river ran beneath her words.
_______
We sat there in the yard, in the rocking chairs, for a while longer. I couldn't say with certainty if it was ten minutes or an hour. We sat in silence, and the stars that crowned the night seemed to descend around us, until the house and the woods and the lane that connected us to the outer world all disappeared as if behind a veil, and a great host of diamond-white stars sparkled above and to every side of us, and encapsulating dome of stars under which we were safe.
_______
"The yew is the graveyard tree, symbol of sorrow and death."
_______
At the moment, I needed to see a firmament of stars, needed to gaze past the moon and through the constellations, needed to see what can't be seen - infinity.
_______
The 1930s art deco movie theater - The Egyptian - had been an architectural wonder in its heyday. All these years later, abandoned and in a state of decay, the building still possessed a little magic.
_______
In mere hours, trust had ceased to be a choice and had become, with love, the foundation of all my hopes for the future.
_______
"I never lie, either. But sometimes I evade. And so do you."
_______
There is no end of wonders and mysteries: fireflies and music boxes, the stars that outnumber all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world, pinhead eggs that become caterpillars that dissolve into genetic soup from which arise butterflies, that some hearts are dark and others full of light.
_______
To believe in luck, you must believe that the universe is a roulette wheel and that instead of paying out to us what we have earned, it pays out only what it wishes. But it is not a spinning wheel of chance, it is a work of art, complete and framed by eternity.
He said that because we live in time, we think that the past is baked and served and eaten, that the present is coming out of the oven in continuous courses, and that the future is not yet even in the mixing bowl.
_______
To understand the universe, our world, and all of life in the world, you have to step out of time . . .
_______
In truth, Father said, at the first instant of the universe, all of time was present, all our yesterdays and today and all our tomorrows, everyone and everything that was and ever would be existed at that moment. But more amazing still, in the first instant that the universe came into existence, the fabric of it also included all the infinite ways that things might have been, countless of them terrible in the extreme and countless others glorious.
________
"That's over. All of it is over. We're moving on to something new."
_______
I had lived more than two-thirds of my life in those windowless rooms, and for the most part they had been years of contentment and hop. I felt as though ten thousand conversations between Father and me were recorded on those concrete walls and that if I could only sit quietly and attentively enough, with adequate patience, they would replay for me. Nothing in this world, not even the most mundane moments of our lives, is without meaning, nor is any of it lost forever.
_______
. . . I discovered what I was and who I am. What might have been but never was . . . Well, it all became possible again.
___________________________
From my initial reading Fall 2013:
I absolutely loved this story until chapter 73 (approximately the final 35 pages) :-( From then on it was a disappointing disaster. Wow!
Until Chapter 73, these are my thoughts as I was reading Innocence: Amazing, Beautiful, Sweet, Delightful. A story of Love, Friendship, Trust, Destiny, Time and the Magic of Life. In chapter 73, information is given to the reader about the two main characters and at that point it was make it or break it for me. I saw that Dean would either blast off into a rocket of amazement and wonder or derail. I asked myself, "Is Dean going to be able to pull this off?" In my opinion, the story derailed. For me, the magic and wonder was lost and I was filled with anger. Dean, and those who appreciate the main message of this story, might conclude that I have a lack of innocence.
Dean has ridden a fine line with his religious beliefs in his writing and in some books (most specifically The Taking) done really nice and thought-provoking work. In Dean's two most recent novels, Deeply Odd and Innocence, I believe he has crossed into territory where his religious views take away from the story. This really saddens me.
Thank you to Bantam/Random House for giving me the opportunity to read this book 3 months in advance of release date!!!!!
Reading the second time, I already knew how this story ended - and that was my biggest disappointment with my initial reading. For this book, I really have to get in the right mindset to appreciate what the story has to offer.
I didn't finish until April when the world-wide impact of COVID-19 allowed me more time for reading. Of course with our current crisis, I saw many similarities to events in Innocence: a character that wears a mask, several characters self isolating, a virus impacting world-wide, the idea of an apocalypse.
Here are a few relevant passages which brought to mind the film, Contagion and COVID-19:
"Ebola virus, Lone Ranger, and flesh-eating bacteria, and way pumped up, the shit's totally enhanced, airborne, they say worse than atom bombs. It eats you up from the inside out. How's that for bad?"
_______
"The bathroom, hot water, soap, wash yourself," and she said, "Move, move, now, let's go."
_______
"Do you have sanitizing gel in the glove box, anything, do you have anything?"
_______
"Addison, I assume you know what has come into the world."
"A plague, you mean."
"The plague, I think, after which the long war between mankind and microbes will have ended."
_______
"It'll be worse than bad. Latest word is that they engineered the weapon, the bug, for a 98-percent mortality rat. It exceeded their expectations. Then they lost control of it."
__________________
Favorite Passages:
The music seemed to issue from the air, as if passing through a membrane from another, unseen world parallel to ours.
Perhaps those who lived in the open would have found the idea of an invisible world too fanciful and would have dismissed the notion.
Those of us who remain hidden from everyone else, however, know that this world is wondrous and filled with mysteries. We possess no magical perception, no psychic insight. I believe our recognition of reality's complex dimensions is a consequence of our solitude .
To live in the city of crowds and traffic and constant noise, to be always striving, to be in the ceaseless competition for money and status and power, perhaps distracted the mind until it could no longer see - and forgot - the all that is. Or maybe, because of the pace and pressure of that life, sanity depended on blinding oneself to the manifold miracles, astonishments, wonders, and enigmas that comprised the true world.
_________
I favored a theory involving the unseen world parallel to ours that I mentioned earlier. If such a place existed, separated from us by a membrane we couldn't detect with our five senses, then perhaps at some points along the continuum, the membrane bulged around a small part of that other reality and folded it into the stuff of ours. And if both worlds, in their becoming, arose from the same loving source, I liked to believe that such secret havens as this would be provided especially for those who, like me, were outcasts by no fault of their own, reviled and hunted, and in desperate need of shelter.
_______
The more familiar that a place becomes, the more mysterious it becomes, as well, if you are alert to the truth of things. I have found this to be the case all of my life.
_______
As I crossed the yard, the wind made dead leaves caper at my feet, in the way that small animals, familiars to a witch, might dance around she whom they served.
_______
The clump-and-thud of avalanching books suggested that someone must be using the weapon of knowledge in an unconventional fashion.
_______
. . . they were all selfish perverts when you really got to know them.
_______
I had remained hopeful that, among the millions on this Earth, there might be a few who could summon the courage to know me for what I am and have the self-confidence to still walk part of this life with me. The girl, mysterious in her own right, was the first in a long time who seemed as if she might have that capacity.
_______
The fallow soil of loneliness is fertile ground for self-deception.
_______
"People have lost their history, the what and how and why of things. They know so little of the places where they live."
_______
"If I touch you, you'll pull the hood off my head. Or if instead you make the first move and pull the hood off my head, then I'll touch you. We hold each other hostage to our eccentricities."
I smiled again, an unseen smile. "We're made for each other."
_______
. . . I wanted more than peace and survival. I felt that I had a purpose that could be fulfilled only elsewhere . . .
_______
. . . electrified by a sense of possibilities that might transform in positive ways . . .
________
To one degree or another, I have been happy most of my life, in part because the world has infinite charms if you wish to see them.
_______
Sometimes your life rolls away with you, like a big stone going downhill fast . . .
_______
. . . the seams of my life were split, and I didn't believe that I could sew them up again.
_______
In spite of my yearnings, I remained satisfied not to pursue the impossible and to settle for the miraculous.
_______
. . . I thought that perhaps she lived in a different dimension form mine and was capable of exploring this world, though I could not cross into hers.
_______
Insanity is rapidly becoming the new normal.
_______
"The flame delights the moth before the wings burn."
_______
. . . in reality we, too, were speeding forward aboard the train of time, on different journeys . . .
_______
. . . sorrow like a river ran beneath her words.
_______
We sat there in the yard, in the rocking chairs, for a while longer. I couldn't say with certainty if it was ten minutes or an hour. We sat in silence, and the stars that crowned the night seemed to descend around us, until the house and the woods and the lane that connected us to the outer world all disappeared as if behind a veil, and a great host of diamond-white stars sparkled above and to every side of us, and encapsulating dome of stars under which we were safe.
_______
"The yew is the graveyard tree, symbol of sorrow and death."
_______
At the moment, I needed to see a firmament of stars, needed to gaze past the moon and through the constellations, needed to see what can't be seen - infinity.
_______
The 1930s art deco movie theater - The Egyptian - had been an architectural wonder in its heyday. All these years later, abandoned and in a state of decay, the building still possessed a little magic.
_______
In mere hours, trust had ceased to be a choice and had become, with love, the foundation of all my hopes for the future.
_______
"I never lie, either. But sometimes I evade. And so do you."
_______
There is no end of wonders and mysteries: fireflies and music boxes, the stars that outnumber all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world, pinhead eggs that become caterpillars that dissolve into genetic soup from which arise butterflies, that some hearts are dark and others full of light.
_______
To believe in luck, you must believe that the universe is a roulette wheel and that instead of paying out to us what we have earned, it pays out only what it wishes. But it is not a spinning wheel of chance, it is a work of art, complete and framed by eternity.
He said that because we live in time, we think that the past is baked and served and eaten, that the present is coming out of the oven in continuous courses, and that the future is not yet even in the mixing bowl.
_______
To understand the universe, our world, and all of life in the world, you have to step out of time . . .
_______
In truth, Father said, at the first instant of the universe, all of time was present, all our yesterdays and today and all our tomorrows, everyone and everything that was and ever would be existed at that moment. But more amazing still, in the first instant that the universe came into existence, the fabric of it also included all the infinite ways that things might have been, countless of them terrible in the extreme and countless others glorious.
________
"That's over. All of it is over. We're moving on to something new."
_______
I had lived more than two-thirds of my life in those windowless rooms, and for the most part they had been years of contentment and hop. I felt as though ten thousand conversations between Father and me were recorded on those concrete walls and that if I could only sit quietly and attentively enough, with adequate patience, they would replay for me. Nothing in this world, not even the most mundane moments of our lives, is without meaning, nor is any of it lost forever.
_______
. . . I discovered what I was and who I am. What might have been but never was . . . Well, it all became possible again.
___________________________
From my initial reading Fall 2013:
I absolutely loved this story until chapter 73 (approximately the final 35 pages) :-( From then on it was a disappointing disaster. Wow!
Until Chapter 73, these are my thoughts as I was reading Innocence: Amazing, Beautiful, Sweet, Delightful. A story of Love, Friendship, Trust, Destiny, Time and the Magic of Life. In chapter 73, information is given to the reader about the two main characters and at that point it was make it or break it for me. I saw that Dean would either blast off into a rocket of amazement and wonder or derail. I asked myself, "Is Dean going to be able to pull this off?" In my opinion, the story derailed. For me, the magic and wonder was lost and I was filled with anger. Dean, and those who appreciate the main message of this story, might conclude that I have a lack of innocence.
Dean has ridden a fine line with his religious beliefs in his writing and in some books (most specifically The Taking) done really nice and thought-provoking work. In Dean's two most recent novels, Deeply Odd and Innocence, I believe he has crossed into territory where his religious views take away from the story. This really saddens me.
Thank you to Bantam/Random House for giving me the opportunity to read this book 3 months in advance of release date!!!!!
March 25, 2018
I really don't mean any disrespect to the author or his readers, but I genuinely wonder how in the world anybody could call this a good novel, when it reads as if it was written by a 13 year old. No, the prose is excellent - I am talking about the content.
This is nothing more than a young adult novel, or, even worse, the novelization of a manga comic book, even though I hope today's teenagers are fed with something better than this shallow, lazy and unimaginative stuff.
However, if you have a taste for light fantasy teenager fiction or manga comics, you might still enjoy "Innocence".
---
Here is an article that asks the question "why do adults read YA fiction
I think the article is over-thinking the answer. The reason why so many adults today read millions of YA fiction books is simple and unfortunately it is NOT A GOOD ONE: they are mostly shallow, immature or intellectually lazy.
This is nothing more than a young adult novel, or, even worse, the novelization of a manga comic book, even though I hope today's teenagers are fed with something better than this shallow, lazy and unimaginative stuff.
However, if you have a taste for light fantasy teenager fiction or manga comics, you might still enjoy "Innocence".
---
Here is an article that asks the question "why do adults read YA fiction
I think the article is over-thinking the answer. The reason why so many adults today read millions of YA fiction books is simple and unfortunately it is NOT A GOOD ONE: they are mostly shallow, immature or intellectually lazy.
April 4, 2020
Well again I find myself in the minority about a given book. This book will be hard to review in any detail without spoilers. I'll try and then maybe put a few remarks in under a spoiler tag.
First I vacillated a little here between 4 and 5 stars and finally went with my old rule that "it's a 5 star read to me". In the end our judgements about most anything will be at least somewhat subjective. Movies, music, TV shows, food, drinks...pets and books will be "our judgements"
Well at least I hope they are, at least if we think for ourselves they are.
So anyway, what can I say about this book? There has been a lot said and written about the "periods" in DK's writing. I personally like many of the "new period" books. If I try to give you another of DK's books that has some of the same feel of this one it would probably be .
The book also (while not as "good") puts me in mind of C.S,Lewis' Perelandra, part of his Science Fiction Trilogy.
Look being careful not to reveal plot, story line or anything about characters I'll say this. Yes Mr. Koontz's faith does come through here in a way. It's not in detail and at best you'll only be able to make a guess at what he himself actually believes and the book doesn't follow Christian theology in many ways. But if you're an atheist you'll probably not get into it. Of course I could be wrong there as I read many books with an atheistic point of view and like many. I also read books from other religious points of view...none of that somehow forces me into some belief system against my will so....
There are certain questions dealt with here that are answered in a way that handles objections that are often brought up in the face of faith and they're done in a way that tells a good and interesting story.
If the book has a flaw I thought possibly the early part of the book introing our male protagonist may have been dragged out a little but I stayed interested and involved in the character's story so...not a big issue. For you who are concerned about it the book's semi-religious nature doesn't show up until you get to the climax and it isn't (at least I didn't think it was) heavy handed.
So without spoilers I like this book and think it makes it just over the line from 4 stars into 5. I recommend it...know going in that there is a theistic viewpoint in the book.
First I vacillated a little here between 4 and 5 stars and finally went with my old rule that "it's a 5 star read to me". In the end our judgements about most anything will be at least somewhat subjective. Movies, music, TV shows, food, drinks...pets and books will be "our judgements"
Well at least I hope they are, at least if we think for ourselves they are.
So anyway, what can I say about this book? There has been a lot said and written about the "periods" in DK's writing. I personally like many of the "new period" books. If I try to give you another of DK's books that has some of the same feel of this one it would probably be .
The book also (while not as "good") puts me in mind of C.S,Lewis' Perelandra, part of his Science Fiction Trilogy.
Look being careful not to reveal plot, story line or anything about characters I'll say this. Yes Mr. Koontz's faith does come through here in a way. It's not in detail and at best you'll only be able to make a guess at what he himself actually believes and the book doesn't follow Christian theology in many ways. But if you're an atheist you'll probably not get into it. Of course I could be wrong there as I read many books with an atheistic point of view and like many. I also read books from other religious points of view...none of that somehow forces me into some belief system against my will so....
There are certain questions dealt with here that are answered in a way that handles objections that are often brought up in the face of faith and they're done in a way that tells a good and interesting story.
If the book has a flaw I thought possibly the early part of the book introing our male protagonist may have been dragged out a little but I stayed interested and involved in the character's story so...not a big issue. For you who are concerned about it the book's semi-religious nature doesn't show up until you get to the climax and it isn't (at least I didn't think it was) heavy handed.
So without spoilers I like this book and think it makes it just over the line from 4 stars into 5. I recommend it...know going in that there is a theistic viewpoint in the book.
January 11, 2014
I remember reading Ticktock by Dean Koontz and being surprised at how clever, creative and simultaneously intense it was. So naturally, I gravitated towards this book when I read the description. It sounded interesting! I mean, a man who can't be seen and a woman who can't be touched finding each other and escaping bad guys? Sure, why not.
Innocence, in actuality, is a simultaneously entrancing and frustrating book.
At first, I was intrigued by Addison Goodheart, the book's main character. He was born with some vague deformity so grotesque that the midwife actually tried to smother him out of horror and his mother, who at first defended him, nearly tried to murder him herself no less than five times. Something about his face- specifically his eyes- inspires people to violence.
Then there's Gwyneth. Gwyneth is Addison's love interest; a woman with a crippling social phobia where she cannot tolerate being seen or touched except by very specific people. Addison happens to fall into that specific because his own eccentricity (where he refuses to let anyone see his face) intrigues her.
There are unfortunately problems with both of these characters and the very core of this book's plot. It's hard to elaborate because every one of this book's issues is so entrenched with all the other issues it has that I can't find a good starting spot.
Oh, I know! I'll start the plot flow.
This book flows like a roller coaster that grinds to a screeching halt every 10 seconds. One chapter, we're advancing the plot! Then Addison flashes back ten years so we can learn more about his amazing adoptive father for a chapter. Then a chapter of minimal plot advancement. Then a flashback for Addison to grieve about his mother. It got so ridiculous towards the middle of the book that it took Addison and Gwyneth literally a third of the book to finish an awkward romantic dinner in her apartment. Even worse, this dinner didn't even move the plot forward. It was all exposition!
This book is almost all exposition! Nobody bothers to drive it forward at anything but a snail's pace until the very end. Major plot points are revealed by Addison and Gwyneth talking about them. Addison himself is so frustratingly passive that he could have been written out of the story and only the ending would change. Gwyneth is so frustratingly secretive that all the major plot details have to be revealed at the very end. This is not a good combination for a healthy book flow.
And then there's the plot itself. It doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a story about a girl trying to incriminate her father's murderer? Is it a story about a girl being chased by the spirit of a crazed murderer who possesses marionettes? Is it a story about a girl who is protecting a comatose child from evil? (notice how none of these subplots seem to involve Addison) Or perhaps it's a biblical apocalypse story? ...
The book jumps from subplot to subplot and then Addison's tormented past and never dwells on any of it for long. It ultimately develops nothing to satisfaction. The big climax is awkward and lackluster and the way everything tied together in the end was so bizarre that I needed time to properly comprehend what just happened and how I felt about it.
I think I ultimately decided that it was a terrible book.
Innocence, in actuality, is a simultaneously entrancing and frustrating book.
At first, I was intrigued by Addison Goodheart, the book's main character. He was born with some vague deformity so grotesque that the midwife actually tried to smother him out of horror and his mother, who at first defended him, nearly tried to murder him herself no less than five times. Something about his face- specifically his eyes- inspires people to violence.
Then there's Gwyneth. Gwyneth is Addison's love interest; a woman with a crippling social phobia where she cannot tolerate being seen or touched except by very specific people. Addison happens to fall into that specific because his own eccentricity (where he refuses to let anyone see his face) intrigues her.
There are unfortunately problems with both of these characters and the very core of this book's plot. It's hard to elaborate because every one of this book's issues is so entrenched with all the other issues it has that I can't find a good starting spot.
Oh, I know! I'll start the plot flow.
This book flows like a roller coaster that grinds to a screeching halt every 10 seconds. One chapter, we're advancing the plot! Then Addison flashes back ten years so we can learn more about his amazing adoptive father for a chapter. Then a chapter of minimal plot advancement. Then a flashback for Addison to grieve about his mother. It got so ridiculous towards the middle of the book that it took Addison and Gwyneth literally a third of the book to finish an awkward romantic dinner in her apartment. Even worse, this dinner didn't even move the plot forward. It was all exposition!
This book is almost all exposition! Nobody bothers to drive it forward at anything but a snail's pace until the very end. Major plot points are revealed by Addison and Gwyneth talking about them. Addison himself is so frustratingly passive that he could have been written out of the story and only the ending would change. Gwyneth is so frustratingly secretive that all the major plot details have to be revealed at the very end. This is not a good combination for a healthy book flow.
And then there's the plot itself. It doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a story about a girl trying to incriminate her father's murderer? Is it a story about a girl being chased by the spirit of a crazed murderer who possesses marionettes? Is it a story about a girl who is protecting a comatose child from evil? (notice how none of these subplots seem to involve Addison) Or perhaps it's a biblical apocalypse story? ...
The book jumps from subplot to subplot and then Addison's tormented past and never dwells on any of it for long. It ultimately develops nothing to satisfaction. The big climax is awkward and lackluster and the way everything tied together in the end was so bizarre that I needed time to properly comprehend what just happened and how I felt about it.
I think I ultimately decided that it was a terrible book.
November 7, 2023
I love Koontz, although sometimes his politics and faith can get in the way of a good story. Maybe it's impossible to separate the essential viscera of who a writer is at-heart with the story they convey at any given time. Whatever the case, Innocence is a unique Koontz novel. Less thriller, than lyrical fable convoluted by the horror trappings of Koontz's imagination, Innocence is almost mystical allegory.
Here, Addison Goodheart believes himself a monster, so he hides his face from all of humanity, until a chance encounter in a library with a woman dressed like a harlequin puppet fills him with hope for a future where he does not have to live hidden away from the eyes of everyone else. They both have scars, both visible and invisible; yet their brief encounter initiates a relationship that may have negative consequences for both.
As always, Koontz tells an intriguing tale bordering the fantastical and the feverish fugue of a dream. Definitely, hopeful, but sweeping you up the way the tornado swept up Dorothy and Toto. I couldn't put it down. A really well-done literary treatise with possible merit as a masterwork.
Here, Addison Goodheart believes himself a monster, so he hides his face from all of humanity, until a chance encounter in a library with a woman dressed like a harlequin puppet fills him with hope for a future where he does not have to live hidden away from the eyes of everyone else. They both have scars, both visible and invisible; yet their brief encounter initiates a relationship that may have negative consequences for both.
As always, Koontz tells an intriguing tale bordering the fantastical and the feverish fugue of a dream. Definitely, hopeful, but sweeping you up the way the tornado swept up Dorothy and Toto. I couldn't put it down. A really well-done literary treatise with possible merit as a masterwork.
December 15, 2013
Eloquent. Thought-provoking. Simple. Complex. How do I love thee? Those are just some of the ways. Without doubt, this is one of the best, most beautiful books I've ever read. I couldn't wait for it to end, yet I kept clinging to the hope that it wouldn't.
To be sure, it's a story of good versus evil; it's full of fantasy, mysticism, hope and love interspersed with plenty of thrills and chills. It's Romeo and Juliet against the world, though not necessarily the world as we know it - but then again, mabe it's exactly the world as we know it. It is narrated by Addison Goodheart (an allegorical name if ever there was one), who was born with a countenance so abhorrent to the "real" world that a mere look at him brings out an instant killer instinct. He lives in the shadows of society - the very bowels of the city - venturing forth with his adopted father who shares his disfigurement. Then on one fateful night he meets Gwyneth, a young woman who herself is a fugitive from "normal" life. Totally unlike him yet totally like him, she, too, tries to make her way through a world that would destroy her if given half a chance.
Throughout, the writing is nothing short of exquisite. Every word is a treasure, creating sentences and pages that almost dazzled my mind. Mr. Koontz, I've always enjoyed your books. But for the life of me, I don't know how in the hell you're ever gonna top this one.
To be sure, it's a story of good versus evil; it's full of fantasy, mysticism, hope and love interspersed with plenty of thrills and chills. It's Romeo and Juliet against the world, though not necessarily the world as we know it - but then again, mabe it's exactly the world as we know it. It is narrated by Addison Goodheart (an allegorical name if ever there was one), who was born with a countenance so abhorrent to the "real" world that a mere look at him brings out an instant killer instinct. He lives in the shadows of society - the very bowels of the city - venturing forth with his adopted father who shares his disfigurement. Then on one fateful night he meets Gwyneth, a young woman who herself is a fugitive from "normal" life. Totally unlike him yet totally like him, she, too, tries to make her way through a world that would destroy her if given half a chance.
Throughout, the writing is nothing short of exquisite. Every word is a treasure, creating sentences and pages that almost dazzled my mind. Mr. Koontz, I've always enjoyed your books. But for the life of me, I don't know how in the hell you're ever gonna top this one.
October 12, 2015
Long-winded pointless descriptions, especially toward the end seem to be written by someone studying creative writing & not a bestseller whose sold 450 million books.
A plot that doesn't know what story it wants to tell, a lack of any suspense or good character development are just some of the reasons this book is a bore.
I've had enough of Koontz's religious overtones & increasingly bloated style. He used to be a great genre writer but something has gone wrong in the past decade with him. After his really poor Odd Thomas series (1st book was great, by third I gave up) I'm not reading any more of his books.
Considering his experience, I can only think that he has paired up with a bad editor or he's not listening to his editor. You can see the problems with this book from a mile away.
If you want to read a great horror writer, try Joe Hill's NOS4R2 or Lauren Beukes The Shining Girls.
A plot that doesn't know what story it wants to tell, a lack of any suspense or good character development are just some of the reasons this book is a bore.
I've had enough of Koontz's religious overtones & increasingly bloated style. He used to be a great genre writer but something has gone wrong in the past decade with him. After his really poor Odd Thomas series (1st book was great, by third I gave up) I'm not reading any more of his books.
Considering his experience, I can only think that he has paired up with a bad editor or he's not listening to his editor. You can see the problems with this book from a mile away.
If you want to read a great horror writer, try Joe Hill's NOS4R2 or Lauren Beukes The Shining Girls.
December 12, 2013
Beyond brilliant, possibly the best fiction I have ever read. Fantastic twist - don't read any spoilers, just let the story unfurl as told by the author. I am blown away by the quality of the writing and the story line. It's just perfect!
June 25, 2018
Powerful written with much insight in the human condition!!!
A thriller, a modern fantasy tale, and even an allegory summarizing the default and deteriorated human race in the midst of a world spinning and whirling faster and faster that has become unbound and crazy...
The story deals with an outcast hiding beneath a city and avoiding human contact at any price!!
Its also a tender love story full of emotions between two Loosers...
But above all its a tale about endurance in spite of hate, enmity, and how to overcome the destructive forces of solitude..
I would call it one of Koontz best, ever!!!
You see, novels like this ( intelligently written, allegorical, and riveting ) are worth to be read and reread again and again..
Good at the beginning, awesome at the middle, and with a satisfying end!!
A genuine page-turner..
I loved it, and four stars aren't to much.. believe me...
Happy reading
Dean;D
A thriller, a modern fantasy tale, and even an allegory summarizing the default and deteriorated human race in the midst of a world spinning and whirling faster and faster that has become unbound and crazy...
The story deals with an outcast hiding beneath a city and avoiding human contact at any price!!
Its also a tender love story full of emotions between two Loosers...
But above all its a tale about endurance in spite of hate, enmity, and how to overcome the destructive forces of solitude..
I would call it one of Koontz best, ever!!!
You see, novels like this ( intelligently written, allegorical, and riveting ) are worth to be read and reread again and again..
Good at the beginning, awesome at the middle, and with a satisfying end!!
A genuine page-turner..
I loved it, and four stars aren't to much.. believe me...
Happy reading
Dean;D
December 23, 2021
O.M.G. Has Koontz gone modern? Is he dabbing in the apocalyptic world? Could he be starting something new? I absolutely LOVED this book! My head is reeling so I will have to come back for the review. Need to sort some things out.
Addison is a creature of the night living in the bowels of the city with no companionship or even the thought of ever having anyone to converse with much less be drawn to until the night in the library when he sees Gwyneth. She quickly becomes his confidant and friend. Gwyneth can't be touched physically, she can't stand anyone touching her and that works out well between them because Addison can't be looked upon. At the instant you look at Addison something takes over and you want to kill him, to destroy him.
I loved this story. Koontz once again weaved two lives together in the most peculiar way and the ending was beautiful. Even though you kind of figure out the whole Addison thing before then it is a wonderful, fantastic story.
Addison is a creature of the night living in the bowels of the city with no companionship or even the thought of ever having anyone to converse with much less be drawn to until the night in the library when he sees Gwyneth. She quickly becomes his confidant and friend. Gwyneth can't be touched physically, she can't stand anyone touching her and that works out well between them because Addison can't be looked upon. At the instant you look at Addison something takes over and you want to kill him, to destroy him.
I loved this story. Koontz once again weaved two lives together in the most peculiar way and the ending was beautiful. Even though you kind of figure out the whole Addison thing before then it is a wonderful, fantastic story.
July 24, 2018
EDIT/UPDATE: It ought to tell you something about how much this book wormed its way into my mind that I had to read it again, less than six months after reading it the first time.
This time, already knowing the story, I had the pleasure of being able to focus more on the author's craft, to appreciate the foreshadowing, to read and re-read passages for the sheer pleasure of how the words were put together and the images elicited. But -- wow, still a story that came at me from a direction I wasn't expecting and is sticking with me for reasons I can't fully explain...
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Surprising, lyrical, terrifying and heartwarming�
This book was nothing that I was expecting. I’m not even sure I know how to go about writing a review.
While on its surface this is an interesting story and contains some really beautiful writing, it is the allegory of good versus evil that made this book a real winner for me. The glimpses of evil that Koontz gave were thankfully short-lived but made me shudder � I don’t want to believe evil is so abundant. The time I spent in the mind and heart of Addison were a balm to me and an inspiration. For me, this book was a paean to hope, love, beauty, optimism, honor, and yes, innocence.
In the story, Addison must hide from the world. (In the beginning, I thought this would be a beauty-and-the-beast story, but it wasn’t.) He must hide from the world because one look at his face inspires hatred and murderous rage. By sheer happenstance, he meets a girl, Gwyneth, with severe social phobia. They are an odd but perfect couple, she agreeing never to look at his face, and he agreeing not to approach her too closely and never to touch her. Together, they must flee an evil man determined to kill Gwyneth and anyone close to her.
Quite honestly, I could not imagine how the author would convince me that everyone’s reaction to Addison would be as horrible as it was. What could inspire such hatred and rage? The answer, to my mind, was perfect and heartbreakingly understandable.
I’m giving this book five stars � a rating I usually save for books I will likely read again. In this case, I’m not sure that I will read it again, but I’m not sure I need to. Bits and pieces of this book are inside me forever. What more can I say?
This time, already knowing the story, I had the pleasure of being able to focus more on the author's craft, to appreciate the foreshadowing, to read and re-read passages for the sheer pleasure of how the words were put together and the images elicited. But -- wow, still a story that came at me from a direction I wasn't expecting and is sticking with me for reasons I can't fully explain...
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Surprising, lyrical, terrifying and heartwarming�
This book was nothing that I was expecting. I’m not even sure I know how to go about writing a review.
While on its surface this is an interesting story and contains some really beautiful writing, it is the allegory of good versus evil that made this book a real winner for me. The glimpses of evil that Koontz gave were thankfully short-lived but made me shudder � I don’t want to believe evil is so abundant. The time I spent in the mind and heart of Addison were a balm to me and an inspiration. For me, this book was a paean to hope, love, beauty, optimism, honor, and yes, innocence.
In the story, Addison must hide from the world. (In the beginning, I thought this would be a beauty-and-the-beast story, but it wasn’t.) He must hide from the world because one look at his face inspires hatred and murderous rage. By sheer happenstance, he meets a girl, Gwyneth, with severe social phobia. They are an odd but perfect couple, she agreeing never to look at his face, and he agreeing not to approach her too closely and never to touch her. Together, they must flee an evil man determined to kill Gwyneth and anyone close to her.
Quite honestly, I could not imagine how the author would convince me that everyone’s reaction to Addison would be as horrible as it was. What could inspire such hatred and rage? The answer, to my mind, was perfect and heartbreakingly understandable.
I’m giving this book five stars � a rating I usually save for books I will likely read again. In this case, I’m not sure that I will read it again, but I’m not sure I need to. Bits and pieces of this book are inside me forever. What more can I say?
November 10, 2013
Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
(A more coherent review will come later after I have pondered the touching eerieness of this novel.)
Okay, I'm back!
First of all, many thanks to Crazy Dustin for his part in helping me obtain this ARC. And thanks to Random House for sending out the ARCs, and thanks to Dean Koontz himself for writing this story and even signing it.
[Clears throat]
To begin, Innocence reminds me of Koontz's Odd Thomas and Chris Snow books because it is told in the first-person from the point of view of Addison Goodheart, a man who is a complete outcast from society--but his similarity with Odd and Chris ends there.
Addison lives alone beneath an unnamed city. He can show no one his face because if he does, they will be so appalled by the sight of him that they'll kill him just as they killed the man who raised him since he was a boy of eight.
(My initial thought here was OH MY GOSH IT'S KIND OF LIKE THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!!!!! Which is just about one of my favorite stories ever, but I digress.)
Unlike the Phantom, Addison is not a homicidal maniac. One night when he's exploring the city library after hours, he comes across a young woman named Gwyneth who is being chased by a man who had murdered her father. Addison wants to help Gwyneth and they end up teaming up with each other. Problem is, Addison fears that Gwyneth will see what he looks like, so he has to keep his face hidden the whole time they're together so he won't terrify her.
Dean really draws out the suspense because he doesn't reveal what Addison's affliction is until the very end of the novel. I knew it was going to be beyond anything I could have guessed, and I was right.
I did have some issues with the overall plot of the novel. Many Koontz novels have intricate, developed plots, but I felt that Innocence had some plot lines that needed additional explaining and development. Snow scenes tended to be overdescribed, too. In all, the ending was my favorite part of the book.
(A more coherent review will come later after I have pondered the touching eerieness of this novel.)
Okay, I'm back!
First of all, many thanks to Crazy Dustin for his part in helping me obtain this ARC. And thanks to Random House for sending out the ARCs, and thanks to Dean Koontz himself for writing this story and even signing it.
[Clears throat]
To begin, Innocence reminds me of Koontz's Odd Thomas and Chris Snow books because it is told in the first-person from the point of view of Addison Goodheart, a man who is a complete outcast from society--but his similarity with Odd and Chris ends there.
Addison lives alone beneath an unnamed city. He can show no one his face because if he does, they will be so appalled by the sight of him that they'll kill him just as they killed the man who raised him since he was a boy of eight.
(My initial thought here was OH MY GOSH IT'S KIND OF LIKE THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!!!!! Which is just about one of my favorite stories ever, but I digress.)
Unlike the Phantom, Addison is not a homicidal maniac. One night when he's exploring the city library after hours, he comes across a young woman named Gwyneth who is being chased by a man who had murdered her father. Addison wants to help Gwyneth and they end up teaming up with each other. Problem is, Addison fears that Gwyneth will see what he looks like, so he has to keep his face hidden the whole time they're together so he won't terrify her.
Dean really draws out the suspense because he doesn't reveal what Addison's affliction is until the very end of the novel. I knew it was going to be beyond anything I could have guessed, and I was right.
I did have some issues with the overall plot of the novel. Many Koontz novels have intricate, developed plots, but I felt that Innocence had some plot lines that needed additional explaining and development. Snow scenes tended to be overdescribed, too. In all, the ending was my favorite part of the book.
October 14, 2015
Dean Koontz is an amazing writer in my opinion. This book was about the end times and the ones who make it through the final count down.
The charictor development was incredible and the story line was riveting.
I recommend this book to all.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond
The charictor development was incredible and the story line was riveting.
I recommend this book to all.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond
November 10, 2022
Innocence and Wilderness (Group Read - January 2020 - 2 books)
Second read - January 2020
A second read shows me how/why “Fogs & Clears� are no longer needed.
Addison & Gwyneth are hated, trapped by “Fogs� not protected by “Clears�.
Finally, when roads are closed by Homeland Security keeping “Bad Men� to flee calling it a “plague�. Bailey (Gwyneth’s dad) helps their seclusion in a wooded cabin. Where the wolves appear as just dogs, they help turn a Jeep of men threaten them away from an escape. Other people that escaped, are protected by other’s control & death too. The “Fogs & Clears� are not needed.
First read - December 2013
The book opens with Addison Goodhart (a.k.a. "I" in the book) hiding in NY tunnels for over six years. He meets Gwyneth in the library stacks, while she is attacked & Addison her escape hide/run together.
Addison (26) and Gyneth (18) had both been in NY for 18 years. He was 8 in “Wilderness� book.
Some story flow is bad with how the book’s logic jumps from present & past memories. Dad explains what “Fogs & Clears� mean. The "Fog" (Evil) attacks a Bad man, Ryan Telford, while attacking Gwyneth at the library, the "Clear" protects them.
The book is good as there are not many characters to follow.
Wilderness book link
/book/show/1...
Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Innocence Series link
/series/1862...
Second read - January 2020
A second read shows me how/why “Fogs & Clears� are no longer needed.
Addison & Gwyneth are hated, trapped by “Fogs� not protected by “Clears�.
Finally, when roads are closed by Homeland Security keeping “Bad Men� to flee calling it a “plague�. Bailey (Gwyneth’s dad) helps their seclusion in a wooded cabin. Where the wolves appear as just dogs, they help turn a Jeep of men threaten them away from an escape. Other people that escaped, are protected by other’s control & death too. The “Fogs & Clears� are not needed.
First read - December 2013
The book opens with Addison Goodhart (a.k.a. "I" in the book) hiding in NY tunnels for over six years. He meets Gwyneth in the library stacks, while she is attacked & Addison her escape hide/run together.
Addison (26) and Gyneth (18) had both been in NY for 18 years. He was 8 in “Wilderness� book.
Some story flow is bad with how the book’s logic jumps from present & past memories. Dad explains what “Fogs & Clears� mean. The "Fog" (Evil) attacks a Bad man, Ryan Telford, while attacking Gwyneth at the library, the "Clear" protects them.
The book is good as there are not many characters to follow.
Wilderness book link
/book/show/1...
Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Innocence Series link
/series/1862...
December 20, 2013
Quite probably the best book I read this year. Once again, Dean shows not only his incredible imagination but also the depths of his compassion for the unwanted, the unloved, the marginalized in our society.
Written in first person, this is the story of Addison Goodheart's life as an outcast. He stumbles into a mystery and learns much more than he expected!
Written in first person, this is the story of Addison Goodheart's life as an outcast. He stumbles into a mystery and learns much more than he expected!
November 26, 2021
What the hell was this?! A paranormal thriller for devout Catholics?
Years ago I heard somewhere that Dean Koontz is a commercially successful writer who knows his craft well. So I thought I should read at least one book by this author. I bought "Innocence" soon after it had been published, but it took me a while to get to it.
The writing is solidly crafted indeed, for the most part.
Both main characters, 18 and 26 years old, sound as if they are at least 50 years old, but this might be explained away by their isolated life and by the amount of books they had supposedly read. "Would you like a glass of Pinot Grigio for dinner?" says an 18 years old girl to a 26 years old boy. Well, ok, I can swallow this degree of teen sophistication-- the girl has a very special background and a very rich and cultured dad.
Villains, on the other hand, are 100% villainous and about as complex as the multiplication table. All right, I can get over this too.
The tone is solemn and full of pathos (or is it borderly-pathetic?). Don't look for comic relief -- there is none. But well, it's all sad and tragic business, definitely no laughing matter -- I get this.
It's the main premise and the ending that I cannot swallow. By the end of the book, I felt like throwing up.
Dean Koontz obviously has a thing for plagues. His name was all over the news at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemics. Back in 1981 his "The Eye of Darkness" featured a biological weapon developed in Russian lab: "Gorky-400". In 1989 the book was released again, and this time Dean Koontz changed the name of the weapon to "Wuhan-400" and moved the evil lab to China --quite an eerie coincidence, right on the target of the latest conspiracy theories. Kudos.
So when I started reading Innocence (published in 2014), I did not expect to see a plague yet again. Surprise, surprise -- we do get a plague after all! And this time, quite appropriately (one has to keep up with the times, right?) the plague is caused by an artificially enhanced virus from Northern Korea.
So nowadays would be a perfect time to market "Innocence", right? Well, not exactly. We've got a problem here -- readers plagued in real life might not appreciate neither the evolution of this fictional plague, nor the way the world has been saved from its lethal influence.
Years ago I heard somewhere that Dean Koontz is a commercially successful writer who knows his craft well. So I thought I should read at least one book by this author. I bought "Innocence" soon after it had been published, but it took me a while to get to it.
The writing is solidly crafted indeed, for the most part.
Both main characters, 18 and 26 years old, sound as if they are at least 50 years old, but this might be explained away by their isolated life and by the amount of books they had supposedly read. "Would you like a glass of Pinot Grigio for dinner?" says an 18 years old girl to a 26 years old boy. Well, ok, I can swallow this degree of teen sophistication-- the girl has a very special background and a very rich and cultured dad.
Villains, on the other hand, are 100% villainous and about as complex as the multiplication table. All right, I can get over this too.
The tone is solemn and full of pathos (or is it borderly-pathetic?). Don't look for comic relief -- there is none. But well, it's all sad and tragic business, definitely no laughing matter -- I get this.
It's the main premise and the ending that I cannot swallow. By the end of the book, I felt like throwing up.
Dean Koontz obviously has a thing for plagues. His name was all over the news at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemics. Back in 1981 his "The Eye of Darkness" featured a biological weapon developed in Russian lab: "Gorky-400". In 1989 the book was released again, and this time Dean Koontz changed the name of the weapon to "Wuhan-400" and moved the evil lab to China --quite an eerie coincidence, right on the target of the latest conspiracy theories. Kudos.
So when I started reading Innocence (published in 2014), I did not expect to see a plague yet again. Surprise, surprise -- we do get a plague after all! And this time, quite appropriately (one has to keep up with the times, right?) the plague is caused by an artificially enhanced virus from Northern Korea.
So nowadays would be a perfect time to market "Innocence", right? Well, not exactly. We've got a problem here -- readers plagued in real life might not appreciate neither the evolution of this fictional plague, nor the way the world has been saved from its lethal influence.
June 16, 2017
I never quite know what I’m in for when I start a new novel by Dean Koontz. He’s written some books that I love to death and a few others that put me to sleep. He was also one of the first authors I read as a young teen so I always grab his new books hoping for the best but bracing for the worst. This time it worked out and it didn’t turn out to be another “Your Heart Belongs To Me� or “Velocity� with jerky protagonists who annoyed me from beginning to end.
I read this on audio and took all kinds of notes but I’m feeling lazy so I’m going to ramble out onto this white page whatever comes to mind and I’ll do my best not to spoil anything.
Basically this is a book about a young guy named Addison. Addison was born with some sort of affliction that makes people fly into a murderous rage when they see his face. Seriously. They want him dead. Thusly, he cannot allow himself to be seen and must hide in the shadows and live underground. Don’t bother asking me to reveal what that affliction is because I won’t do it. I spent most of the book wondering what the heck was so wrong with him and you’ll have to do the same. Be careful about reading spoilerific reviews because I feel it will ruin the book for you. All is revealed in the end and I thought it was quite beautiful. But that’s me. You might be annoyed.
After Addison’s heartbreaking childhood is revealed in flashback you’ll want to give him a big hug. Despite it all, he’s grown up sweet natured and, yes, rather innocent as the title says. He finally makes a friend named Gwyneth who is able to look past his aversion to being looked at and she honors his wishes. Gwyneth has some major quirks of her own. She’s lived her life in seclusion due to “social anxiety�, she can’t abide being touched and has been protected and doted on by her wealthy father. But he’s been murdered and Gwyneth is hell bent on exposing his evil murderer, thus forcing her out into the world to fight evil with the help of Addison. The two make a great pair and become insta-friends. I believed it. There is much more going on here (but not too much for my tired brain) and I loved all of it. There are packs of dogs (yay!), there’s a plague brewing (yay!!), and there are sinister marionette’s (evil dolls! Yay!!!). These are a few of my favorite things and they’re all wrapped into one book, how could I not love it? Well, that’s easy. The story could’ve tanked due to Koontz’s penchant for excessive wordiness and lame characters with unrealistic dialogue. But there was none of that here. Or if there was it didn’t bother me. I haven’t liked a Koontz book as much as this one since I read Odd Thomas.
That’s not to say it’s perfect. The murderer is a Koontz classic, a one-note evil guy, cursing worse than me when I run out of chocolate and spreading his evil wherever he goes because he feels like it. The story is almost perfect though and that’s more than good enough for me. I found only one of the plot elements a little unclear (pun alert, if you’ve read it) but Koontz may be setting this up as another series. Anyway, it read that way to me which was slightly annoying because I never follow through on reading series. But that’s my problem.
I read this as an unabridged audiobook and the narrator took a little getting used to. He reads at a very leisurely pace as if he and I have all the time in the world, but he does vulnerability oh-so-well and the story was so compelling that I quickly fell into it, rather than falling asleep.
Innocence was lovely and sweet and has an interesting, twisty plot that kept me guessing and reading until the very end. If you read it, I hope you love it as much as I did.
I read this on audio and took all kinds of notes but I’m feeling lazy so I’m going to ramble out onto this white page whatever comes to mind and I’ll do my best not to spoil anything.
Basically this is a book about a young guy named Addison. Addison was born with some sort of affliction that makes people fly into a murderous rage when they see his face. Seriously. They want him dead. Thusly, he cannot allow himself to be seen and must hide in the shadows and live underground. Don’t bother asking me to reveal what that affliction is because I won’t do it. I spent most of the book wondering what the heck was so wrong with him and you’ll have to do the same. Be careful about reading spoilerific reviews because I feel it will ruin the book for you. All is revealed in the end and I thought it was quite beautiful. But that’s me. You might be annoyed.
After Addison’s heartbreaking childhood is revealed in flashback you’ll want to give him a big hug. Despite it all, he’s grown up sweet natured and, yes, rather innocent as the title says. He finally makes a friend named Gwyneth who is able to look past his aversion to being looked at and she honors his wishes. Gwyneth has some major quirks of her own. She’s lived her life in seclusion due to “social anxiety�, she can’t abide being touched and has been protected and doted on by her wealthy father. But he’s been murdered and Gwyneth is hell bent on exposing his evil murderer, thus forcing her out into the world to fight evil with the help of Addison. The two make a great pair and become insta-friends. I believed it. There is much more going on here (but not too much for my tired brain) and I loved all of it. There are packs of dogs (yay!), there’s a plague brewing (yay!!), and there are sinister marionette’s (evil dolls! Yay!!!). These are a few of my favorite things and they’re all wrapped into one book, how could I not love it? Well, that’s easy. The story could’ve tanked due to Koontz’s penchant for excessive wordiness and lame characters with unrealistic dialogue. But there was none of that here. Or if there was it didn’t bother me. I haven’t liked a Koontz book as much as this one since I read Odd Thomas.
That’s not to say it’s perfect. The murderer is a Koontz classic, a one-note evil guy, cursing worse than me when I run out of chocolate and spreading his evil wherever he goes because he feels like it. The story is almost perfect though and that’s more than good enough for me. I found only one of the plot elements a little unclear (pun alert, if you’ve read it) but Koontz may be setting this up as another series. Anyway, it read that way to me which was slightly annoying because I never follow through on reading series. But that’s my problem.
I read this as an unabridged audiobook and the narrator took a little getting used to. He reads at a very leisurely pace as if he and I have all the time in the world, but he does vulnerability oh-so-well and the story was so compelling that I quickly fell into it, rather than falling asleep.
Innocence was lovely and sweet and has an interesting, twisty plot that kept me guessing and reading until the very end. If you read it, I hope you love it as much as I did.
December 18, 2013
I was sorely disappointed with this book. It's been obvious to me that Mr. Koontz was gearing up to write a book involving biblical lore and I really wish he hadn't gone there. I'm in mourning today for one of my favorite authors. :(
December 20, 2013
This author is one who never stops surprising readers. In fact, this new novel will leave some absolutely breathless, as Koontz builds an incredible plot that not only offers his signature ‘eerie� moments, but also delves into love, loss, and attempting to find one’s identity by having to deal with the blatant sins and vices every human carries with them.
In the simplest of terms, we have a young man who is anything but simple. He has escaped pain and death from flames, bullying, and became a social outcast at a very young age. You see, people can’t look him in the eye. If they do, they attempt to kill him on sight. The boy knew, just by the way his mother acted by sending him out to live in the woods because she couldn’t stand the sight of him, that there must be something terribly wrong with him. And when he must face the loss of his parent, he finds himself in the City, walking the streets at night, completely covered, head down, living each day in fear as he tries to escape any gazes that could focus on him and cause his death. He meets up with a man he calls Father; a man with the same type of ‘illness� he suffers from. Father moves the boy down below the city in a small group of rooms set within subway walls and tunnels so that they remain out of sight from everyone. There, he teaches him about survival and the ways of the world.
We also have a girl who is strong, determined, and wealthy, who has a great deal of power, yet is also a social outcast. To keep hidden in plain sight this girl chose to use costumes, dressing herself up with nose rings and lip piercings, putting herself out there as a Goth so people would simply walk by her and pay her no mind. She can alter the world with her gifts, and her fear of ever being touched makes it impossible for anyone to get close to her.
One night these two meet in the NYPL. He has come up from below the basement to discover the girl racing away from a true monster who wants to stop her from her mission of seeing him destroyed. A friendship between the two is formed; a romance is built that is never spoken about or shared, especially seeing as that the boy - now 26 - knows he is hideous to look at and has no chance with her if she ever sees his face. As they both hide behind their fears and masks, a plot unfolds that is both magical and frightening.
From an evil marionette that sits in the window of a toy store; to the very real world that’s filled with hate and the absence of mercy for our fellow man - Koontz has created a stunning, mysterious, suspenseful story that will have readers engrossed in every word. But the most amazing thing about this book is when Koontz opens the door to reveal why people are so afraid of this duo when they look them in the eyes.
Enthralled, captivated, this is one reviewer who can say this story has opened my eyes to faith, wonder, and a sadness I’ve never felt before. With this unforgettable story I will read over and over again throughout the years, Dean Koontz has given to me the gift of sight; as well as the realization that perhaps I didn’t really want to see - that absolute truth is a whole lot more frightening than any ‘monster� a writer could possibly invent. If I knew Mr. Koontz I would thank him for Innocence, because not only did he once again entertain, but he taught me something I will cherish forever.
In the simplest of terms, we have a young man who is anything but simple. He has escaped pain and death from flames, bullying, and became a social outcast at a very young age. You see, people can’t look him in the eye. If they do, they attempt to kill him on sight. The boy knew, just by the way his mother acted by sending him out to live in the woods because she couldn’t stand the sight of him, that there must be something terribly wrong with him. And when he must face the loss of his parent, he finds himself in the City, walking the streets at night, completely covered, head down, living each day in fear as he tries to escape any gazes that could focus on him and cause his death. He meets up with a man he calls Father; a man with the same type of ‘illness� he suffers from. Father moves the boy down below the city in a small group of rooms set within subway walls and tunnels so that they remain out of sight from everyone. There, he teaches him about survival and the ways of the world.
We also have a girl who is strong, determined, and wealthy, who has a great deal of power, yet is also a social outcast. To keep hidden in plain sight this girl chose to use costumes, dressing herself up with nose rings and lip piercings, putting herself out there as a Goth so people would simply walk by her and pay her no mind. She can alter the world with her gifts, and her fear of ever being touched makes it impossible for anyone to get close to her.
One night these two meet in the NYPL. He has come up from below the basement to discover the girl racing away from a true monster who wants to stop her from her mission of seeing him destroyed. A friendship between the two is formed; a romance is built that is never spoken about or shared, especially seeing as that the boy - now 26 - knows he is hideous to look at and has no chance with her if she ever sees his face. As they both hide behind their fears and masks, a plot unfolds that is both magical and frightening.
From an evil marionette that sits in the window of a toy store; to the very real world that’s filled with hate and the absence of mercy for our fellow man - Koontz has created a stunning, mysterious, suspenseful story that will have readers engrossed in every word. But the most amazing thing about this book is when Koontz opens the door to reveal why people are so afraid of this duo when they look them in the eyes.
Enthralled, captivated, this is one reviewer who can say this story has opened my eyes to faith, wonder, and a sadness I’ve never felt before. With this unforgettable story I will read over and over again throughout the years, Dean Koontz has given to me the gift of sight; as well as the realization that perhaps I didn’t really want to see - that absolute truth is a whole lot more frightening than any ‘monster� a writer could possibly invent. If I knew Mr. Koontz I would thank him for Innocence, because not only did he once again entertain, but he taught me something I will cherish forever.
November 25, 2013
To get the technical stuff out of the way, I won a free ARC through the GoodReads First Reads giveaways.
Many years ago I read everything Koontz had written, but fell away from reading the horror genre in general well over a decade ago. I remember that I had always liked his writing style for the genre, but again, it has been a long time since I've picked up anything by him. When I read the synopsis in the giveaways I decided to enter to win it as it sounded like an unusual read.
An unusual read it certainly was. I have never read anything remotely like it, and I have to say this is a good thing. I can't seem to find a good way to sum the book, or my feelings about it up. Until 3/4 of the way through I can't imagine what possibly could be wrong with the narrator and his "father" that they would bring out so much hate in the human race, and when I did find out I was even more astounded...and it may have changed my outlook on humanity. Sounds melodramatic, but this is a story that will certainly make you think about the world we live in and the creatures which inhabit it - and about what kind of end we are headed toward.
Definitely a poetically written book, and I was mildly surprised by the number of words in the book that I was not familiar with. I consider myself to have a pretty vast vocabulary, and consider my husband my equal in this area, but there was quite a list of words we were not familiar with. For geeks like us, this is a good thing.
Bonus points for making marionettes even creepier than I have always thought them to be. Not a small feat. I know most people find clowns make their skin crawl, and while I can't say I've ever been particularly fond of clowns, marionettes have always made them look like teddy bears in comparison. Koontz' portrayal of the ones in this book remind us of his background in the horror genre.
I can't really put my finger on what exactly drew me to this book, as it is not really something in retrospect I could see myself picking out, but I am glad that it did. As voracious a reader as I am, it is not often that a book really creeps into my soul the way this one did, and certainly rare for one to leave me pondering the state of the universe the way this one has.
Though I realize this is a new direction for this "old" author, I am feeling inclined to revisit the entire body of his work after this read. I will certainly be looking forward to what comes after this.
Many years ago I read everything Koontz had written, but fell away from reading the horror genre in general well over a decade ago. I remember that I had always liked his writing style for the genre, but again, it has been a long time since I've picked up anything by him. When I read the synopsis in the giveaways I decided to enter to win it as it sounded like an unusual read.
An unusual read it certainly was. I have never read anything remotely like it, and I have to say this is a good thing. I can't seem to find a good way to sum the book, or my feelings about it up. Until 3/4 of the way through I can't imagine what possibly could be wrong with the narrator and his "father" that they would bring out so much hate in the human race, and when I did find out I was even more astounded...and it may have changed my outlook on humanity. Sounds melodramatic, but this is a story that will certainly make you think about the world we live in and the creatures which inhabit it - and about what kind of end we are headed toward.
Definitely a poetically written book, and I was mildly surprised by the number of words in the book that I was not familiar with. I consider myself to have a pretty vast vocabulary, and consider my husband my equal in this area, but there was quite a list of words we were not familiar with. For geeks like us, this is a good thing.
Bonus points for making marionettes even creepier than I have always thought them to be. Not a small feat. I know most people find clowns make their skin crawl, and while I can't say I've ever been particularly fond of clowns, marionettes have always made them look like teddy bears in comparison. Koontz' portrayal of the ones in this book remind us of his background in the horror genre.
I can't really put my finger on what exactly drew me to this book, as it is not really something in retrospect I could see myself picking out, but I am glad that it did. As voracious a reader as I am, it is not often that a book really creeps into my soul the way this one did, and certainly rare for one to leave me pondering the state of the universe the way this one has.
Though I realize this is a new direction for this "old" author, I am feeling inclined to revisit the entire body of his work after this read. I will certainly be looking forward to what comes after this.
January 21, 2014
What the? Huh? Yup my first one-star book of the year and it took an unheard of week to read and seriously I really tried to get into this one and was sadly super sadly disappointed..I thought from the beginning I was getting a Beauty and the Beast retelling and then when elements of the supernatural crept in I still was willing to ride, when another strange secluded girl comes in the picture and there seems to be a friendship/romance I was with it but when they never fully explain anything, when nothing is truly elaborated on and when I finish over 330 pages of dribble I get super annoyed..Why isn't anything explained?!! Okay so this is the story of Addison Goodheart a never fully defined deformed? person who lives on his own beneath the city banished because of his appearance and forced to live in the night and all alone when he comes upon a similarly secluded woman afraid of people and in her own sort of secluded world and the two form a friendship where she cannot look at him and he cannot touch her..Its like a Beauty and the Beast vibe until Addison explains that he can see spirits evil ones "Fogs" and seemingly good one "Clears" along with some demented marionette dolls that come up frequently in the book..but again here's the thing there is a lot of theoretical moral talk about innocence and the fight between good and evil but there is never any real answers I found..I mean what does Addison look like? What really were the Fogs and Clears besides people's conscious roaming around? What was up with the vague silly marionettes? And how and why did they get married in the end oh and also for the love of God why is there even mention to an ebola virus/plague with that wack ass villain Teleford who steals antiques and items from the library? I know I cant even adequately describe the book and maybe I didn't understand it..I do recall reading good Dean Koontz but this one---Boo.
December 18, 2018
Wow.
This book blew me away with its beauty and its message. In his novel Innocence, Koontz has created a stunning allegory of the darkness in our world. On the surface, this book follows a young man with a disfiguration so unsettling that it provokes immediate violence in anyone who sees his face and a young woman with such an intense social phobia that she cannot bear the slightest touch. Beneath this veneer, this is a story about the evilness of humanity, our wanton destruction of the world, our love of violence and our inhumanity towards each other.
The surface story is interesting in and of itself. The characters are beautifully portrayed, the writing is elegant, and the tragedies are heart-rending. The allegory though is masterfully constructed and woven throughout the story. It carries religious undertones, which typically are a turn-off for me as a staunch atheist, but Koontz's story was so compelling that these did not detract enough for me to even question whether I'd be rating this book 5 stars or not. The themes crafted into this allegory could hardly be more relevant to the present world we live in.
I'm puzzled why this book isn't rated more highly on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. After reading reviews, it seems clear that some people did not understand the allegory, did not understand what Koontz was doing behind the superficial story of Addison and Gwyneth; this may account for the negative reviews. It's also entirely possible that the allegory provoked a reaction of anger or disgust in some; perhaps it hit too close to home or perhaps they rejected Koontz's pessimism regarding the state of the world we live in. I personally suspect that for many, it was because Koontz alluded to some disconcerting, often painful truths. Of course, opinions regarding books are in large part a matter of personal taste, and some people may have simply not enjoyed the book for other reasons. Still, I think it deserves a higher rating.
The bottom line: this book is a fantastic, deep, rich allegory of our world and of the struggle between good and evil, set against the backdrop of two young people struggling to survive with mysterious conditions. I strongly encourage everyone to give it a try.
This book blew me away with its beauty and its message. In his novel Innocence, Koontz has created a stunning allegory of the darkness in our world. On the surface, this book follows a young man with a disfiguration so unsettling that it provokes immediate violence in anyone who sees his face and a young woman with such an intense social phobia that she cannot bear the slightest touch. Beneath this veneer, this is a story about the evilness of humanity, our wanton destruction of the world, our love of violence and our inhumanity towards each other.
The surface story is interesting in and of itself. The characters are beautifully portrayed, the writing is elegant, and the tragedies are heart-rending. The allegory though is masterfully constructed and woven throughout the story. It carries religious undertones, which typically are a turn-off for me as a staunch atheist, but Koontz's story was so compelling that these did not detract enough for me to even question whether I'd be rating this book 5 stars or not. The themes crafted into this allegory could hardly be more relevant to the present world we live in.
I'm puzzled why this book isn't rated more highly on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. After reading reviews, it seems clear that some people did not understand the allegory, did not understand what Koontz was doing behind the superficial story of Addison and Gwyneth; this may account for the negative reviews. It's also entirely possible that the allegory provoked a reaction of anger or disgust in some; perhaps it hit too close to home or perhaps they rejected Koontz's pessimism regarding the state of the world we live in. I personally suspect that for many, it was because Koontz alluded to some disconcerting, often painful truths. Of course, opinions regarding books are in large part a matter of personal taste, and some people may have simply not enjoyed the book for other reasons. Still, I think it deserves a higher rating.
The bottom line: this book is a fantastic, deep, rich allegory of our world and of the struggle between good and evil, set against the backdrop of two young people struggling to survive with mysterious conditions. I strongly encourage everyone to give it a try.
January 5, 2020
In some ways Dean Koontz’s most un-Koontzlike novel yet (purple prose and dog saviors aside), Innocence is a strange, unyielding work that doesn’t offer much in the way of cheap thrills or a taut narrative—things that are Koontz’s bread and butter. Koontz says the entirety of this story came to him in a dream; that is quite evident . . . the narrative has the languid, reality-bending quality of a dream. The reader knows this one isn’t much grounded in reality.
I almost gave this three stars, but what bumped it up to four is the likability of Addison Goodheart (no, seriously)—he’s essentially an improved-upon Odd Thomas, visions of spirits and all. Addison doesn’t come with the annoying political ruminations and snarky humor, two qualities I find grating in Koontz’s Odd, somehow his most popular creation. But I digress . . .
I also liked this story’s ending; I usually don’t mind Koontz’s endings, but I felt this one is especially successful in all its weirdness. It’s pretty nutty, even for this writer, but hey I’m always good with the strange.
I bumped my rating down a star because of Koontz’s occasionally rambling prose—what made me DNF this book upon release in 2013. Sometimes it feels like Koontz does what he can to bump up page count, and at this point in his career I suppose editors are afraid to tell him no. Alas.
I almost gave this three stars, but what bumped it up to four is the likability of Addison Goodheart (no, seriously)—he’s essentially an improved-upon Odd Thomas, visions of spirits and all. Addison doesn’t come with the annoying political ruminations and snarky humor, two qualities I find grating in Koontz’s Odd, somehow his most popular creation. But I digress . . .
I also liked this story’s ending; I usually don’t mind Koontz’s endings, but I felt this one is especially successful in all its weirdness. It’s pretty nutty, even for this writer, but hey I’m always good with the strange.
I bumped my rating down a star because of Koontz’s occasionally rambling prose—what made me DNF this book upon release in 2013. Sometimes it feels like Koontz does what he can to bump up page count, and at this point in his career I suppose editors are afraid to tell him no. Alas.
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April 12, 2018So, yeah, I read this...
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