Review: Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz

Title: Ashley Bell
Author: Dean Koontz
Pages: 576
Genre: Fiction
Source: Free ARC from Random House Publishing via NetGalley

Rating: B+

Note: As stated under the Source (above), I received this book for free from Random House Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review (and trust me, honest is always what you’ll get).

Summary: After being diagnosed with a fatal illness, Bibi Blair quickly discovers that nothing is as it seems and the impossible is in fact possible.

Review: As previously  mentioned, I am a Dean Koontz fan. Not in an I’ve-read-everything-he’s-written kind of way, but in an I-own-more-books-of-his-than-any-author, I’ve-loved-him-since-I-was-a-preteen, I-will-love-him-until-I-die, he-can-do-no-wrong-because-he-is-my-author-boyfriend kind of way. Seriously. Seriously. I love him.

Which is not to say that I love everything he writes. He is one of those rare authors that has such an all-encompassing imagination that sometimes he goes places that aren’t for me, places I have a hard time connecting to. But I keep reading him because when he does write something I connect with, it is SUCH an amazing ride! (Fear Nothing and Seize the Night, I’m talking to you!)

In terms of Ashley Bell, I had a hard time connecting at first. Super short chapters that bounced between different character perspectives threw me off in the beginning. But holy crap, once the story started picking up, everything went berserk! I had no idea which end was up, and every time I thought I was getting a sense of what the great unveiling was going to be, I found I was grasping at straws.

In trying to think of a way to best explain how explosive the plot gets, I kept going back to an experience I had as a teenager. My boyfriend at the time was an assistant golf pro and he would take old golf balls, the wound kind, crack open the hard shell, and then bounce the core. The elastic bands caused it to bounce dangerously around in this totally chaotic, but highly entertaining way. That is how Ashley Bell is. It starts out as this tightly wound ball of millions of miles of elastic string hidden in a hard covering, but once that covering is cracked all this craziness comes hurtling out at light speed.

Long story short? Be patient in the beginning and then get ready for a highly chaotic ride!