THE HATCHING by Ezekiel Boone
CBTB Rating: 2/5
The Verdict: skip unless you love spiders
This is going to be one of my least-intricate reviews, simply because I don't believe this story is complex enough to warrant one.
Never in a million years did I think I would read an apocalyptic thriller about spiders. Reading THE HATCHING was nothing if not a new experience – I picked it up purely out of curiosity, and despite my low rating for this book, I did actually enjoy it a decent amount. For a book about spiders, THE HATCHING is an entertaining read, but that’s about as far as my appreciation for this book extended.
Ezekiel Boone’s THE HATCHING (Atria; on-sale July 5, 2016) is book one in a trilogy, and traces a series of inexplicable events occurring around the world. In South America, a group of hikers are attacked in the jungle; in India, seismologists struggle to uncover the cause of bizarre quakes shaking their country; in America, a plane falls out of the sky, its passengers brutally killed by something other than the crash… The solution to all these puzzles? An ancient breed of spiders have awoken, and the world will never be the same.
If you’re intrigued by this book’s plot, you will very likely enjoy reading it. I was pleasantly surprised by Ezekiel Boone’s writing – he has written a fast-paced, entertaining book that reads like an apocalyptic movie. There are plenty of changes of scenery and moments of suspense that drive the story forward.
However, that’s where my praise of this book has to end. Plain and simple, this book is not up my alley, and I don’t believe it will appeal to readers whose book tastes are in line with my own. Yes, it’s fast-paced and goosebump-inducing, but as it turns out, my suspicions were correct: I never needed a book about spiders in my life, let alone a trilogy. The plot is multi-faceted yet shallow, and the story is wholly lacking in character development. Furthermore, this book’s ending was about as unsatisfying as they come: it was simply a setup for the next book in the trilogy. I can understand and appreciate creating a cliffhanger to hook your readers, but this ending was a letdown, and truly eroded what enjoyment I had gotten from the novel. The whole book ultimately led up to a deeply unsatisfying finale, and I was disappointed to discover that there is no resolution at all to be found within it.
Overall, reading this book was worth the experiment, but I won’t be reading the upcoming books in this trilogy.