Joint Review: Red Moon by Benjamin Percy

by:  Benjamin Percy
published by:  Grand Central Publishing
publish date:  May 7, 2013

When government agents kick down Claire Forrester's front door and murder her parents, Claire realizes just how different she is. Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and hours later stepped off it, the only passenger left alive, a hero. Chase Williams has sworn to protect the people of the United States from the menace in their midst, but he is becoming the very thing he has promised to destroy. So far, the threat has been controlled by laws and violence and drugs. But the night of the red moon is coming, when an unrecognizable world will emerge...and the battle for humanity will begin.

Kari and I both listened to the audiobook for this book.  First off, it's LONG.  I have a tendency to listen to audiobooks on 1.5-2x speed and it still felt like I was listening to this audiobook for weeks.  Because of the length, I had trouble keeping some of the story-lines straight at times.  I felt like there were too many characters at times.

Basically Red Moon is an alternative present.  Instead of the world dealing with radical Islamic terrorists, the world is fighting radical Lycans.  The book kinda reminded me of a mash up of X-Men and Underworld with a lot of current events thrown in.  I found it to be interesting, but I think Kari had a different take on it.

I think my exact words to describe the book to Autumn were 'Snooze Fest".  Red Moon was boring with a capital B!  I'm not even sure why I finished listening to the whole thing.  It was just way too long.   One of the things I didn't like was the explanation for the lupine virus came too late in the story.  There were too many characters and like Autumn, found myself having trouble keeping everyone straight.  The story takes place over too much time.  I felt like it never really got to any destination or purpose.

There were several loose ends left in the end.  What happened to Miriam?  What happened to Chase? I guess the ending leaves room for a sequel.  If there is one, I hope the book is more focused.   The other thing that I didn't care for was having the author do the audio. His voices were often hard to distinguish from one another, so I often wasn't sure who was speaking.   I guess with two separate opinions on the book, you'll have to try it for yourself.  Who do you side with, Autumn or me?