jnkay01
Written on Apr 27, 2015
When the three child survivors of unrelated plane crashes on different continents begin to exhibit increasingly disturbing behavior, a religious cult leader claims that they are harbingers of the apocalypse.
- ISBN10 031624290X
- ISBN13 9780316242905
- Publish Date 20 May 2014 (first published 1 January 2014)
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Little Brown and Company
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 480
- Language English
Reviews
SilverThistle
Written on Aug 30, 2014
The Three is an epistolary novel and is told through a series of electronic documents (blogs, email, skype transcripts and recordings), letters, newspaper clippings etc. It's a book within a book. When it's done well the epistolary format adds a feeling of realism to the story, it mimics how events would be documented if it were to actually happen. I don't always enjoy this style of writing (World War Z springs to mind) but Sarah Lotz is very talented and played the style to perfection
In some circles it's being touted as Horror but apart from being a bit chilling and having creepy kids in it it's not what I'd class as Horror. I'm struggling to know what genre it should be be in though. It's got apocalyptic undertones but that's not close enough either. It's a tough one. It's also a frustrating one. At the end I had no idea what it had all been about. Not. A. Clue. I think that's the point though, nobody has a clue what happened and nobody can agree.
I had read somewhere that it takes about 100 pages to get going so when it was struggling to hold my interest in the beginning I kept at it and ploughed on. So glad I did, it turned out to be gripping, interesting and very well executed. It was sometimes hard to keep all the characters straight in my head because the chapters are really short and whip about in time and place but that just adds to the urgency and suspense of it all.
It's very hard to write anything about the storyline without spoilers so it's not easy to put into words what I most liked about this one. It's a bit surreal, if I'm honest. That part at least is very similar to Lost. The downside would be that I didn't really get any closure on the story as it's very ambiguous and that was a cause of frustration for me, I got to the end of the last page and wondered what on Earth I'd just read. I needed answers and I didn't get all of them.
LOVED the story though. If this isn't made into a movie soon then there is something wrong with the film-makers. If ever a book was crying out to be made into a film, this is it. I can't wait.
I will definitely read more by this author. The lady can write!
*Note - I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher*
pamela
Written on Jun 27, 2014
The premise of the 'The Three' is fascinating, and for the most part I found the style of writing to be brilliant. It has a rocky beginning, with a clunky first person narrative that I found difficult to read, so not the greatest of set ups, but this part is over in a few pages and from there on the writing really comes in to its own. The narrative is presented as a collection of documents, ranging from newspaper reports, voice recordings all the way through to chat room conversations. Each of these come together to help the reader interpret their own version of events with little snippets of information that foreshadow the terrors to come
I enjoyed reading 'The Three', and Sarah Lotz really shines in her stylistic interpretation of the 'non-fiction' sections of her book. She really brings a reality to the novel, and I often found myself thinking just how plausible some of the situations were. She seems to understand the cultures she is writing about which makes their representation believable, and each culture reacts in a very specific way to the enigma of 'The Three'.
The novel has very little characterisation as the reader is not given a narrative in any strict sense. Instead we get to know the characters through a very specific sequence of events and their reactions to it. This is the strength of the novel, and I found that when Lotz wrote narrative that's when my interest dwindled. Her writing style lends itself to the concise. It is such a shame then that she chooses to begin and end her novel with her weakest elements.
The ending of 'The Three' was a major disappointment. I have heard people complain about its ambiguity, however I felt that the finale had the opposite problem. So much of Lotz's novel up to this point had left things open to the reader's interpretation. This was turned on its head in the final chapter, and I felt disappointed to have a theory spoon fed to me instead of letting my imagination and my interpretation fill in the blanks. There were enough hints given throughout the book for me to draw my own conclusions that the ending just seemed like a let down. On top of this, Lotz once again chose to write in a narrative style which made the entire bulk of the novel seem inconsequential and both the beginning and the end were un-engaging and only adequately written.
All in all I highly enjoyed 'The Three' despite its weaknesses, and I will certainly be picking up other novels by Sarah Lotz. It was tense, well crafted, and ultimately an interesting read, let down only by a narratively weak beginning and end.
http://iblamewizards.com/review-the-three-by-sarah-lotz
Rinn
Written on Jun 27, 2014
The Three is unlike any book I’ve ever read. It’s a fictional non-fiction book (!) comprised of eyewitness accounts, interviews, IM chats and transcripts. Focusing around an event known as ‘Black Thursday’, where four planes crashed at the same time all over the world for unknown reasons, it is a book within a book. Between the four crashes, there were only three survivors: all young children, who don’t quite seem themselves after the event. You would think this not usual, considering what they’ve been through, but various people latch on to different theories about what ‘The Three’ might be. These range from the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse to aliens, to possession and many other crackpot theories. What’s immediately clear is that something isn’t quite right…
It is certainly a unique way of telling a story, and despite the size of the book (close to five hundred pages), definitely one to be read quickly. It keeps you drawn in, every page reveals new information whilst keeping you guessing. I mean, this is a book that managed to draw me away from the Steam sales and all my shiny new video games so that’s got to be something, right? ;) As I read more of the story, the creepier moments began to appear – suddenly and completely out of the blue, exactly as they should be! However, I don’t feel the book was ever quite as ‘terrifying’ as several reviews have claimed.
Unfortunately, there were two major things that pulled the book down a rating for me. The first was that I felt an utter lack of connection to any of the characters, because of the way the book was written. It felt very detached and impersonal, with all these interviews and eyewitness accounts – although they were following the same people, there was no room for character development or even really getting to know any of them. Even with the ‘author’ of the book within the book, and her sidenotes – absolutely no connection to the character. I would have loved more information about ‘The Three’ before the crash: although we’re told by friends and relatives that they’re different post-Black Thursday, we don’t know how. The reader has no real idea what any of the children were like before the event, so the creepiness of the change is rather toned down.
The second reason was the completely open and ambiguous ending. I actually felt really frustrated at this, and in a way it sort of felt like the author just couldn’t be bothered to come up with an explanation for the events. When I read a thriller, I like to try and guess why something has happened, what is causing it, who is behind it etc – it’s quite satisfying to get it right! But as there was no answers or explanations for the past four hundred odd pages, I felt a bit cheated.
In conclusion, a read that draws you in and grips you – and is thoroughly enjoyable – but doesn’t quite deserve the ‘horror’ tag. Perhaps if there’d been some explanation or a proper conclusion, it would have been worthy of five stars in my eyes, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite cut it!