Reviews

Blackout: El apagón by Marc; Galán Echevarría, Beatriz (tr.) Elsberg

_slara's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

That’s a tough one…. I was really excited to read this one, but it fell flat. 
Hear me out, I really enjoy well-thought-out science fiction or catastrophic thrillers and I can handle one-dimensionalcharacter (e.g. 3 body problems) but this book bothered me. I really loved the idea and the concept and that it was well researched. I read the German version, so for me, it was mostly a lot of repetition. Mind you, 800 pages of repetition. This book could easily cut 400 pages without loss. I really liked it to be confronted with all the different consequences of a blackout, but please don’t mention the same things (no heat, no water, no sanitary, no fuel) a hundred times… 
As mentioned before, I can handle flat characters but not so many of them. There were so many characters and not one had enough personality. I couldn’t connect with one of them… I really wanted to enjoy this one more. 

anna3101's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

One the best books I've read recently. No zombies, no asteroid hits, no robot rebellion, no pandemic catatstrophe - and yet it's one of the scariest and realistic-looking apocalypse books I've ever read. Extremely well-written, fast-paced, a bit educational, without superheroes or supervillains, it keeps you on the edge all the time. I couldn't put it down, kept reading at night and will definitely buy it for my friends.
It's been a long time since I gave any book 5 stars but this one fully deserves the highest rating.

kimblefairy1989's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Normally I love 'post-apocalyptic' fiction (o.k. I know this isn't proper post-apocalypse but it was a similar premise) but I found this novel to be a bit of a disappointment. All we read was the main characters trying to fix the black out issue - I would have liked to have seen a lot more about the demise of society during times of crisis.

mexicasian's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark fast-paced

3.5

ange9346's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark informative slow-paced

4.0

snackintosh's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

buecherfuechsin's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Convincing.

birgits_bookshelf's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Die Idee des Buches ist sehr gut und insgesamt wurde sie auch tadellos umgesetzt, jedoch brauchte ich viel zu lange um durch dieses Buch zu kommen. Dies liegt einerseits darin, dass ich durch das Adressieren der Charaktere mit Nachnamen keine Verbindung zu ihnen aufbaute, andererseits darin, dass kaum Spannung aufkam übere längere Strecken.

doseogwan's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous informative tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

readacorn's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

In ganz Europa fällt der Strom aus. Der ehemalige Hacker Piero Monzano ist sich sicher, die Ursache gefunden zu haben aber niemand hört ihm zu. Und als man anfängt ihm zuzuhören gerät er selbst in Verdacht.

Ein hochinteressantes Thema wird hier aufgearbeitet: unsere Abhängigkeit von Energie. Vor 200 Jahren konnten die Menschen ohne Strom leicht überleben - heute undenkbar. Und genau das führt uns Elsberg schonungslos vor Augen.
Abzug gibt es für die Länge, 800 Seiten sind too much