Taking the Titanic (James Patterson)

Taking the Titanic

Ok, I'm not gonna lie to you guys- I only read this one because it had a subtitle and I needed that for my challenge. (The original book I had bought for this prompt turned out to be 700 pages long and really "heavy". I still totally plan to read it, but it's gonna take some time.)

First off, I'll start by saying that I do love James Patterson. I fell in love with the Alex Cross books in junior high, and there are too many one-offs that I like to count. So the idea of his "BookShots" confused me a little bit.  I mean, a James Patterson book is sort of a "forget sleeping because I need to finish this book ASAP also when was the last time I peed I can't remember, do I have a dog?" kind of experience. Why would that need to be streamlined? But, especially in today's world of click bait and Tweeted news I sort of understand now. The concept is still the same, what has been wheedled down is the character development and depth of the world you're in.  Those things don't seem very important to a lot of readers these days so maybe these things are the future of literature, who knows. (His accountants probably know.)

Ok, so back to the book at hand. The premise (if you don't feel like clicking through and reading it on Amazon) is sort of weird: a pair of crooks decide to swindle a bunch of rich people on the latest luxury ship (the Titanic) in what they are apparently hoping will be  their lucky year 1912. It turns out there is also ANOTHER swindley plan going on in the background so of course those two are going to end up screwing each other over. BUT THEN (and here are major spoilers!) the boat starts to sink! Heavens! I hope it will turn out ok!

The very nature of a "BookShot" means two things: it was very readable because it was basically nothing but action; and it was sort of a poor example of writing because it requires little more than the part of your brain that says "and then he goes pow! and then she runs real fast but THEN..."

So in general, I think the BookShots are ok, but this one is... a little blah. Maybe it's because I knew the ending before I started.

The Book
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The Writing
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Readability
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