Review: The Hard Way

The Hard Way by Lee Child
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Jack Reacher series is probably my biggest guilty pleasure read. I never go in expecting great literature, but I always expect a story that has me curious and excited about how things will play out. It is part of the reason why I take such large gaps between reading each book. Reading them back-to-back ruins the fun somewhat, whereas reading one every few months or so means I get the enjoyment the books deserve.

Although the books are immensely popular, I find myself constantly giving three-star ratings with the occasional four-star rating thrown in here and there. With The Hard Way, however, we have the first time my rating has dropped down to just the two stars.

For me, this book failed to pack the punch of the prior Jack Reacher books. These books are usually filled with mystery with a side dose of action, yet The Hard Way failed to deliver on these points. The mystery was obvious from very early on, and there were no real action scenes to enjoy. There were countless pages waiting for assumptions to be confirmed, which made it difficult for me to care about what was happening. Usually, Lee Child saves the book through a big action sequence at the end, yet this one fell flat and was over much quicker than usual.

Perhaps The Hard Way was simply a blip, or maybe it was just my reading mood, but this one failed to give me what I usually enjoy about the Jack Reacher stories.

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