Book Review: Never by Ken Follett

Well… where do I start?

First of all, I love Ken Follett. My first book of his was Pillars Of The Earth, and it didn’t take me many pages before I fell in love. I was hooked. I became an instant fan. I’d recommend that to anyone who wants to grt into historical fantasy, Follett, or just great books in general, any day of the week.

Then I read Lie Down With Lions and I was less than impressed. It’s a war thriller about a couple of people who tries to help out some locals in Afghanistan, during the war against Russia, whilst also doing some behind-enemy-lines spy stuff and I… well, let’s just say I didn’t like it, not even a little.

Unfortunately, this book reminds me more of Lie Down With Lions than Pillars Of The Earth.

Never has a lot of stuff going on at the same time. We fellow the American President—President Green—has she tries to navigate a turbulent political landscape; there’s a couple of operatives and an undercover agent posted in Africa, trying to shed light on various criminal enterprises, and there’s a bunch of spies in the far East trying to one-up each other.

And while that sounds very intriguing and thrilling, for the first half of the book I really just struggled to… well, care.

I guess my problem was that I struggled to feel invested in any of the plots. Nothing seemed very urgent, nothing seemed like it mattered, and when the book you’re reading is 800+ pages, you really want the plot to matter to be able to be invested.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Follett’s writing is bad or boring, because I actually really enjoy the way he writes, this book just failed to hook me. It didn’t help when the whole Afria side-plot started becoming really interesting, and then immediately got resolved, faded and was forgotten. Honestly, towards the end I kept waiting for it to be brought up again, to be pulled in and become relevant to the rest of the story somehow and it just wasn’t mentioned ever again. Super weird, and a bit disappointing.

So to sum up: for me, this was a sub-par book by an otherwise great author. I think I’ll stick to Follett’s historical fantasy for now.

Have you read anything by Ken Follett? Do you have any favorites? Let me know in the comments!

And as always, please check out all my books and stories below. If you’re into psychological horror, crime thrillers, or science-fiction and fantasy, you’ve come to the right place! Bye for now!

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