Review: Every Dead Thing

Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’d been looking forward to this one for the longest of times. John Connolly is one of those authors I’ve always been telling myself to pick up. His Charlie Parker series, in particular, screamed out to me. It seemed right up my street: mystery and a supernatural element. It had ‘you will love this’ written all over it. I was expecting a series I would be addicted to, one I would find impossible to put down.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of difficulty reading Every Dead Thing.

It started off with promise. We’re introduced to our main character through a pivotal point in their life, the moment where everything falls apart. It goes without saying that I loved such a thing. I adore seeing characters at their darkness moments, watching as they’re put in situations that will make or break them. Thus, starting in darkness was a lot of fun.

After that, though, things quickly went downhill. It seemed to take forever before the story built up any real speed, before there was any real action. There was a lot going on, with there being stories within the story, yet I felt as though nothing much actually happened. Things moved forward but I never felt like anything was happening. In fact, for a lot of the book, I simply felt as though information was being thrown at me rather than the characters doing anything.

I think the biggest example of this is the way every character introduced seemed to have countless pages of biography. I understand finding out about characters, I adore it when characters have depth, but I dislike it when we’re given countless pages of information. It brings the main story to a halt and it makes things feel far too chunky. I prefer to be given the information over time, rather than a big history in the middle of events. Due to this, I feel as though any emotions that could have been brought to the forefront were put on hold as I came to understand who the character was.

This, however, was just a personal thing. I believe it could have been done so much better, and the way it happen merely made it difficult for me to get into the story. That isn’t to say it was a badly written piece of work – the writing was fine, I had no flaws with the writing itself – it was merely the way the story was told.

Moreover, I was somewhat disappointed by the supernatural element of the story. I had convinced myself that there was going to be a lot of supernatural elements to the story, with the crime and paranormal aspects working together. Since reading this one, I have found out that the paranormal elements slowly build throughout the books. Nevertheless, I had been expecting something more from this one. I’d been ready for spooks and bumps in the night. Instead, there was a tiny paranormal element. In fact, this paranormal element reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s The Stand, minus the end of the world aspect. Due to this, I found myself drifting more than I should have been.

Overall, this one was not what I had been hoping for. I went in ready for something mind blowing, a series I would bulk read. What I found, however, is a series I’m unlikely to continue. Sometimes I give three star books another try, willing to continue on with the series, but when it comes to this one I’m really not that eager to see what comes next. I truly am disappointed by what I was given.

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