Blackout by Marc Elsberg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Title: Blackout
Author: Marc Elsberg
Series: n/a
Pages: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Date: June 6, 2017
Summary:
One night, the lights go out across Europe. The electrical grids collapse on an epic scale and unleash a devastating chaos in the total blackout. And unbeknownst to the general population, nuclear reactors are starting to overheat…
When a former hacker and activist who knows a thing or two about infiltrating networks starts investigating the cause of this disaster, he soon becomes a prime suspect. As threats to the United States start to emerge, he goes on the run with a young American reporter based in Paris, racing desperately to turn the lights back on. Because if they stay off, tomorrow may be too late.
Review:
Although I rated this book as a three, it is really a 3-4. My main criticism is the multiple points of view. I finally got them mostly straight, but I had no idea who was who in the first few chapters. I’m not even sure if some of the characters were necessary to the plot. I’m still not sure that I didn’t mix characters up, but it didn’t matter in the end.
I had a hard time getting into the book. I thought it was slow to develop, but since it was for review I stuck with it. I’m glad I did. It turned out to be a really fascinating story and the societal breakdown due to an international power outage was not something I had ever considered. I do have a hard time believing that things got as bad as they did in only a couple of weeks of no electricity. Maybe because I live in an area where power outages happen on a regular basis. Nothing like what happens in the book because I can always go somewhere that power is available, but still. I kept thinking that these people were so unprepared. Apparently, no one had more than a day or so of food in the house.
Now, after sounding so smug, one thing I had not thought about was the need for cash. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in the bank if you can’t access it. I don’t ever keep more than a few dollars on me because I just use plastic. Well, if there is no power, that will not work.
And that’s why this book is almost a four. It made me think. We all know that we should be prepared for emergencies, but I am guilty of just knowing I should and not actually doing anything about it. This book has made me think about how dependent I am on the infrastructure and how I need to better protect myself.
So yes, I definitely recommend this book. After the slow start, I couldn’t put it down. I had to know what was going to happen next and who the bad guys were. There was a twist at the end that I did not see coming and it made the book even better. This is definitely a great book if you enjoy suspense and to a certain extent apocalyptic themes.
This book was sent to me by NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Elaine Reads . . . constantly! 