The Passage

The Passage
by Justin Cronin

This novel was made into a television series and that is why I wanted to read it. I have been watching the show and have liked it but I have read comments about people being upset that the show is so much different from the book.  So I wanted to read the first book at least.

In summary, the government is experimenting on humans, convicted criminals on death row.  They are trying to find a cure for diseases and what they create instead are vampires.  The doctors think they would be more successful if they experiment on a young child. 

This is where Amy and Brad Wolgast come in.  Amy is the abandoned young child who is about to fall between the cracks, when she is picked to be their guinea pig.  Brad Wolfgast is working for them and has been bringing people in.  He doesn't feel right bringing a child in the mess and becomes a father figure to Amy.

Amy is infected but she becomes different from the others.  She is not completely human anymore, and she is not a vampire.

Then the book jumps and it's in the future.  The infection has spread across the country, humans are very few as there are patches of them here and there, trying to survive.  Trying in vain to keep lights going to keep the infected out.

 I keep reading wanting to find out what happened to Amy and Wolgast.  I would have liked more of the period between after the infected broke out, Amy and Wolgast were in hiding and then the sudden big jump in the future.  However, the book is pretty thick, so unless you broke it up into a couple books, that might have just been too much getting into that part of the story too.

The novel was pretty good, there are definitely differences between the book and the show, but I still enjoyed both.  I'm going to add the next one in the series to my to-read list as I would like to see where this goes.