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A review by ghostroom217
The Jakarta Pandemic by Steven Konkoly
3.0
I very much enjoyed the plot of Steven Konkoly's 'The Jakarta Pandemic'. It was a well-thought out, suspenseful, and plausible storyline, and likely I'll reread it a few years down the road. The reason for the three-star rating, however, are reservations I had about the characters and portions of the dialogue.
Alex was the only character who seemed to have any real depth to me (fortunately, the novel is pretty much all Alex from start to finish). But if you're quarantined in a house with the rest of your family (and much of the book concerns this) then those characters should play major parts over the 400 pages of the novel, not just be objects for Alex to protect, which is pretty much what they amounted to. Throughout most of the book, Kate (Alex's wife) spends her time sleeping, reading or showering (she did do some look-out duty when Alex was out checking neighboring houses, but then left her post to get herself another cup of coffee, which I felt was damn near inexcusable); his son plays video games; and his daughter reads. And that's about it.
Konkoly does exposition dialogue quite well, but stumbles when it comes to family interactions. Their exchanges tended toward the 'cute', which felt canned to me and didn't fit in at all with the tone of the novel and the dire situation outside.
I would recommend the book, but with reservations, and if you're more concerned with plot than characters, then bump my rating up a star.
Alex was the only character who seemed to have any real depth to me (fortunately, the novel is pretty much all Alex from start to finish). But if you're quarantined in a house with the rest of your family (and much of the book concerns this) then those characters should play major parts over the 400 pages of the novel, not just be objects for Alex to protect, which is pretty much what they amounted to. Throughout most of the book, Kate (Alex's wife) spends her time sleeping, reading or showering (she did do some look-out duty when Alex was out checking neighboring houses, but then left her post to get herself another cup of coffee, which I felt was damn near inexcusable); his son plays video games; and his daughter reads. And that's about it.
Konkoly does exposition dialogue quite well, but stumbles when it comes to family interactions. Their exchanges tended toward the 'cute', which felt canned to me and didn't fit in at all with the tone of the novel and the dire situation outside.
I would recommend the book, but with reservations, and if you're more concerned with plot than characters, then bump my rating up a star.