Lapsed into something other than a good book

I put this book down about 300 pages in. There are too many good books available to waste time on one that is not very good. As soon as I noticed it was veering toward christian fundamentalism, I lost interest pretty quickly. It started off well enough, but had so many undeveloped characters as the story unfolded, I just couldn't care very much for them at all. First book I have tried to read by this author - bought it cheap at Costco, so I am out only $13 or thereabouts. Oh, well, on to the next book/author - hope it's better...

Fails on many levels.

I had never read any of Frank Peretti's novels before, so when I saw Monster on sale at a local Christian bookstore, I decided to pick it up. I'd heard good things about Peretti, but if Monster is any indication of his past works, it's likely I will never be cracking a book of his again.

Peretti starts out interestingly enough: readers are immediately thrust into the center of the action and are familiarized with (most of) the main characters. However, what follows is so overplayed and ridiculously drawn out that by Chapter 5 it's easy to predict exactly how the book is going to end. Rather than further develop the action, Peretti easily spends half of the book in excruciatingly detailed descriptions: the interior of the log cabins, what the lab looks like, and even the forest. Also, the book could have been made half as short had Peretti just omitted the uninteresting sidestory involving a character named Cap. It's a painfully agonizing thing to read through, especially when Peretti should have instead focused on character development. After reading of all their troubles, you'd think it would be easy to empathize with these people, but again it comes to the point where you just don't care because of the sheer predictability of it all. What follows is what feels like a thrown together, last minute resolution that is wholly unsatisfying.

If anything, Monster is a decent skim through at best. If you're looking for something particularly engaging, don't look here. The real Monster is this book.

What is the monster?

The whole crazy adventure starts when Reed and Beck Shelton go on a trip to get away from the pressures of life. Reed is hoping that it will give Beck more self-confidence and she is just going along to placate him. Neither expects to spend a terrifying night in the woods, during which Beck is taken captive by a nameless `thing'. Now Reed and others are racing against time to find his wife before it's too late, while trying to discover just what- or who- the 'monster' is.

While Monster was an interesting read, I wouldn't say it was up to the same level of intensity as most of Frank Peretti's books. I found there were no mind-blowing revelations or totally unexpected twists. However, even if it's not his best novel, this was a good book and I still enjoyed reading it.