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Toxic View Drop Down
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Joined: March/17/2006
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: May/22/2006 at 3:27am
I thought this book was great. I like all the witty banter, that makes his books seem real to life (or the way I want life to be). Also I liked reading about the clown being defeated, I've always had a fear of them.
"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/10/2006 at 1:42am
Okay, I know everyone has already tossed in their two cents, but I thought I'd add mine to the pot because I've just finished the book.

I really, really enjoyed it! I totally agree that it was not his usual, but I think it went in the opposite direction of, say, Velocity, which I also felt wasn't his normal stuff either. Let's illustrate this:


L.E.--------------Odd,Bad Place----------------Velocity
FCOHE             Snow Novels                  Intensity

Koontz's "normal" fare often has a science fiction or fantasy plot entertwined with some horrorific details, but not Velocity or Life Expectancy. Both seemed more "down to earth". However, Velocity/Intensity focused on a very short length of time, a very small cast of characters, and constant peril for our hero/heroine. While I liked it in the one, I didn't like it much in the other.

Life Expectancy and From the Corner of His Eye have much longer plots, much wider casts of characters, and more expectation of violence than actuality. In both of these, I adored the screwball characters and what others have dubbed sentimentality and melodrama. We knew the sword of Damocles was hanging over everyone's heads, but it didn't have to be plummeting endlessly. It would have been too unbelievable to have every moment of everyone's lives be a constant struggle for survival. Both allowed us to breathe and enjoy ourselves for a moment, setting the stage for a sudden injection of mayhem.

Without resorting to spoilers, I think most of the twists in Life Expectancy were very well foreshadowed. I was slapping my head by the end of the book and shouting "Duh!" In the very first chapter they gave you a perfect clue and you slid over it.

I'll agree that Jimmy and Lorrie did have perhaps too close a voice, I kept forgetting through that one chapter, though I thought the scam was pretty endearing, and while I understand that Jimmy's baking background gave him a different vocabulary, I too was tiring of the French desert labels for everything. Aside from those two small problems (and why can't a character, like any real person, be a nice guy with an annoying habit. I am a perfectly wonderful person in real life who has a nasty habit of chewing on my nails, it doesn't make me a bad character.) I think the novel was brilliant and beautifully cyclical by the end.

Okay, now I'm leaving to read another book and chew my nails in secret...

Top Ten Koontz (No Particular Order):

Watchers
By the Light of the Moon
Lightning
Moonlight Bay Books
From the Corner of His Eye
The Bad Place
Cold Fire
Phantoms
The Mask
Forever Odd
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/15/2006 at 8:18pm
OK, I HAVE TO SAY- I loved this book, I thought it was great, until OUT of Nowhere, he's suddenly Punchinellos brother!! And then, if that wasn't enough, all the sudden his dad is his grandfather!!! FREAKY. I LOVED the character, then all the sudden, he's inbred... its just wierd... But I LOVED the book.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/16/2006 at 5:02am

Life Expectancy Rocks!!
Life can be as bitter as dragon tears. But whether dragon tears are bitter or sweet depends entirely on how each man perceives the taste.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July/01/2006 at 1:02pm
I just closed the book about five minutes ago and thought it was a great piece of work. I loved Grandma Rowena, along with the way that Lorrie and Jimmy used wit to get through some of their ordeals. I feel this is a book that I would recommend to anyone and am extremely glad that I gave it a chance, considering that I wasn't going to.
"The choice is Yours"--Velocity
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