Seriously, Read a Book!

There are plenty of prolific authors out there with whom I'm completely unfamiliar. It was only a few years ago that I “met” (and fell hard for) Stephen King. So I decided to give Dean Koontz a whirl, and (as suggested by my lone star rating) Odd Thomas and I did't exactly hit it off.

I get the whole different strokes for different folks thing, but I just couldn't handle the saccharine sweet (e.g. “My favorite body part is my heart...”), at times infuriatingly repetitive narrative voice of Odd "Yes That's My Real Name" Thomas. The premise for the book is simply not all that hard to follow—Odd sees dead people. So, there's no need to expressly state that *insert character's name here* (who doesn't see dead people) might have a different take on the world.

Then there are topics/references tossed in that just felt forced. September 11th comes up a couple times, pedophilia and molestation are in there for good measure, and then there's Odd's bizarre understanding of autism. I'm no expert on the etiology of autism spectrum disorders, but Odd's rationale for avoiding big cities— that, in the face of so many lingering dead, he “would no doubt quickly seek escape in autism or suicide”—left me feeling a bit thrown. It doesn't come up again, other than transitioning to the next thought with “Not yet either dead or autistic…” But WTF?!?

Long of the short, Odd Thomas is not for me. I'd be open to giving Koontz another try, but, after this one, I'm in no hurry.