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Whitney Jamimah's Reviews > The Border
The Border
by
by
3.5 stars
Though this was certainly a still a solid book this was my least favorite McCammon to date which is really saying something since 3.5/5 stars is still good so, really, McCammon is 4:4 for me so far.
The gripe, if you could call it that, that I had about this book is that I really think it needed to be longer. McCammon, like King, always always does an amazing job of building the characters up for us. We always get a good amount of time just settling into the story and getting to know the characters back stories and their motives, this is usually my favorite part of any McCammon book. In The Border it felt like we got our character and world building time then BOOM the action started too quickly and overwhelmingly. I wish we could have gotten just a little more time in the "ramping up" phase in between the characterization phase and the main action. It just felt like things started happening too quickly.
As I was reading I realized, we don't get this type of alien story very often, a horror invasion story. Often, a story like this would end up being categorized solidly in the sci-fi section and there would be more focus on the aliens and less on the apocalyptic feel. I loved that about this one. It felt so perfectly creepy and McCammon-esc I really couldn't ask for anything different to fulfill my spooky sci-fi desires for the fall/Halloween 2022 season.
As I already started to say before, McCammon is one of the big dogs when it comes to excellent characterization. One of our main characters Ethan has suffered an amnesic event. I think it can be hard making a character with no discernable history feel so real but McCammon really hit that one on the head in The Border. Ethan managed to still feel very nuanced and had incredible depth given the lack of personal history. Of course, the rest of the supporting characters were equally great as well. I always feel that I intimately know everyone on a McCammon novel.
Of note, I did listen to this one on audio and the narrator was enjoyable except I absolutely couldn't stand the voice that the narrator gave to one of the main characters, Dave. He gave him this ridiculous, fake feeling hardass type of voice. I felt so inauthentic. Yes, Dave was the badass of the group but just because he was the badass doesn't mean he has to have this fake badass voice. I mean, overall I was able to overlook that but if you are very particular on narrations that could hinder your enjoyment as Dave is on page a lot and he get a lot of dialogue.
I guess my final thought on The Border would be this: it was an enjoyable read for sure. If you are looking to make your foray into McCammon though I wouldn't recommend starting here, I'd start with Swan Song or Boy's Life instead and make your way to The Border later as I think those first two books I listed are the best of the best when it comes to McCammon but this one is definitely one to check out if you've come to love McCammon and want to get into more of his back list.
Though this was certainly a still a solid book this was my least favorite McCammon to date which is really saying something since 3.5/5 stars is still good so, really, McCammon is 4:4 for me so far.
The gripe, if you could call it that, that I had about this book is that I really think it needed to be longer. McCammon, like King, always always does an amazing job of building the characters up for us. We always get a good amount of time just settling into the story and getting to know the characters back stories and their motives, this is usually my favorite part of any McCammon book. In The Border it felt like we got our character and world building time then BOOM the action started too quickly and overwhelmingly. I wish we could have gotten just a little more time in the "ramping up" phase in between the characterization phase and the main action. It just felt like things started happening too quickly.
As I was reading I realized, we don't get this type of alien story very often, a horror invasion story. Often, a story like this would end up being categorized solidly in the sci-fi section and there would be more focus on the aliens and less on the apocalyptic feel. I loved that about this one. It felt so perfectly creepy and McCammon-esc I really couldn't ask for anything different to fulfill my spooky sci-fi desires for the fall/Halloween 2022 season.
As I already started to say before, McCammon is one of the big dogs when it comes to excellent characterization. One of our main characters Ethan has suffered an amnesic event. I think it can be hard making a character with no discernable history feel so real but McCammon really hit that one on the head in The Border. Ethan managed to still feel very nuanced and had incredible depth given the lack of personal history. Of course, the rest of the supporting characters were equally great as well. I always feel that I intimately know everyone on a McCammon novel.
Of note, I did listen to this one on audio and the narrator was enjoyable except I absolutely couldn't stand the voice that the narrator gave to one of the main characters, Dave. He gave him this ridiculous, fake feeling hardass type of voice. I felt so inauthentic. Yes, Dave was the badass of the group but just because he was the badass doesn't mean he has to have this fake badass voice. I mean, overall I was able to overlook that but if you are very particular on narrations that could hinder your enjoyment as Dave is on page a lot and he get a lot of dialogue.
I guess my final thought on The Border would be this: it was an enjoyable read for sure. If you are looking to make your foray into McCammon though I wouldn't recommend starting here, I'd start with Swan Song or Boy's Life instead and make your way to The Border later as I think those first two books I listed are the best of the best when it comes to McCammon but this one is definitely one to check out if you've come to love McCammon and want to get into more of his back list.
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