Passage by Connie Willis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The blurb: A tunnel, a light, a door. And beyond it … the unimaginable.
Dr. Joanna Lander is a psychologist specializing in near-death experiences. She is about to get help from a new doctor with the power to give her the chance to get as close to death as anyone can.
A brilliant young neurologist, Dr. Richard Wright, has come up with a way to manufacture the near-death experience using a psychoactive drug. Joanna’s first NDE is as fascinating as she imagined — so astounding that she knows she must go back, if only to find out why that place is so hauntingly familiar.
But each time Joanna goes under, her sense of dread begins to grow, because part of her already knows why the experience is so familiar, and why she has every reason to be afraid.
Yet just when Joanna thinks she understands, she’s in for the biggest surprise of all — a shattering scenario that will keep you feverishly reading until the final climactic page.
My review: This was the strangest book. It started out repetitive but kept my attention, then the pace increased so much I hated having to put the book down. Then…at a major turning point (I won’t say a word) it flipped into repetition again.
Despite my label of strange, it was a really good book. I read all 700 odd pages, so that accounts for something but after that major turning point I spoke of a second ago, there were elements that really, really flattened me. And I don’t mean this in a good way. The author picked the reader up and took them along but then she went too far. Instead of stopping, and letting the reader marvel in what a great author she is, she kept going and going and going and spoiled it. I was disappointed.
The ending was meant to have a reason and everything, and I didn’t miss what it was or anything, I just thought she killed her own book. I learned a lesson here, when a story is over – it’s OVER!!!