Not many debut books have the good writing style or original ideas that are contained in Vanish. There is a reason why this book won the Christian Writer's Guild award. The book is worthy of that award.
The plot focuses on six people in a small town in Indiana. After a wild thunderstorm, they are the only ones left in the town. Everyone else has vanished.
They eventually all meet up and discuss the issue. Then they make plans to escape. They siphon the gas out of all the vehicles to fuel their escape vehicle.
But ultimately, it is futile. There is no escape.
There are also these strange creatures that have suddenly inhabited the town. They want to kill the humans, and the humans want to kill them.
This book is better than other similar books like Vanished by Alton Gansky and Vanished by Kathryn Mackel, mostly because of the explanation of why everyone vanished. The idea is a five star idea.
But that's not the problem. The problem is with the content.
First of all, the characters could have been better. But, after all, this is a debut novel.
Second of all, the explanation for what the creatures are is amateurish. It makes it unnecessary, which is funny, because the creatures are what fills the plot. Without them, it would be pretty boring.
Third of all, not all the characters ended originally. One of them is predictable, three are original, and two are strange.
The book isn't as long as it looks because Tyndale wasted a lot of space on each of the pages to make it look long.
The dialogue end leaves the reading thinking, "What does that mean?" That's not a good impression to leave on the reader.
All in all, the book is good and worth reading. It's just a debut novel, a good idea not used quite right. But I'm interested in what Tom Pawlik will do next.
3.5 stars
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