The first thing that you notice about John Bierce's THE WRACK is the stunningly gorgeous cover. I mean, this is some dazzling work and it draws you in immediately to want to find out more about it. Then as you begin reading the book you realize that as gorgeous as the cover is, the prose is just as gorgeous, if not more so. I was immediately struck by both the depth of the characters and the flawless dialogue that made me laugh most of the time, and yes I admit, shed a tear on a few occasions as well. It's really difficult to get me to buy in that much to make me emotional while reading a story, since I'm a bit of a cynic by nature. But damn if Bierce didn't make me care about every single character in this book, even the ones that only make a passing appearance.

But let's get to the heart of this book, which is the incredibly well-told story that makes you want to keep turning the pages, and turning, and turning. This book is about as raw and brutal a read as you can come by but it is also incredibly moving and never makes you feel like there's not something worth salvaging in the end. I was really blown away by THE WRACK and am here to say that if you don't read this book, you are seriously missing out on a rare talent right now by the name of John Bierce. He will not hold your hand and tell you everything that you need to know explicitly, but he will ask you to work a little for what is a phenomenal payoff if you just invest a little time and attention.

This is an interesting fantasy take on a pandemic. I loved the concept of the world, especially the magic system, with the focusing crystals, the hierarchy and the communication system, and there seemed to be loads of potential for political intrigue.

Unfortunately the story itself seemed a bit haphazard, jumping from place to place and not quite connecting. The plot seemed to take second place to world building exposition, whilst characters settled way in third. I really loved getting to know several of the characters - but as there's not really a main character and we move quickly onto new people, I never really got to follow the people who seemed interesting. At first I was excited to meet and connect with characters and to follow their story, then disappointed when we never returned to them. Their stories felt unfinished, their promise never met.

I would definitely like to read more set in this world, especially with this magic system. There is an absolute ton of potential here and I hope we return to this world in the future, following just a few characters this time!

An ok book. Slightly unfocused in places, but it does contain some great ideas. The plot follows the spread of the disease and the challenge the world faces in dealing with it. It's described well, but the narrative focuses too much to my liking on the disease and this happens at the cost of characters. I read for characters, ideas come third or fourth for me

An ok book. Slightly unfocused in places, but it does contain some great ideas. The plot follows the spread of the disease and the challenge the world faces in dealing with it. It's described well, but the narrative focuses too much to my liking on the disease and this happens at the cost of characters. I read for characters, ideas come third or fourth for me.

This was an interesting read, as well as being very timely in its material. One of its greatest strengths is the perspective given from a large number of characters. The narrative outlook and various views and opinions of each character made the story interesting and gave it heart. However, this also worked against the story in many places. Huge amounts of information and background were given only for a person to never be mentioned again. I found myself struggling to adapt to the world building in such a short story. I enjoyed it and it was different from much else that I have read. I will keep looking into the author's other works.

When I initially picked this up, the idea and the plot synopsis caught my attention, a plague is running rampant in this fantasy world, and people are dying at tremendous speeds.

I'm going to be honest here, I started skipping chapters, I got bored, this became a literal chore for me to read. I very quickly lost interest the minute the plot stopped focusing on the plague and started heavily focusing on the world building. Only one other time have I ever felt like i was being burdened by too much world building. It got to the point where so many of the chapters just felt disconnected with the overall story, because they didn't mention the wrack at all.

There was no actual main character, a few came back a few times, but no one was ever around long enough to really build any liking towards. So I started thinking, ahh the main character is suppose to be the plague, this Wrack, but then that took a back seat as well, with all the unnecessary world building. I understand that Bierce was more then liking trying to get me to understand how this was affecting the world, but it just got to much.

Chapter two made zero sense to me, I have no clue how Semaphores work or what they actually look like, it was so confusing. Chapter 14 was the most annoying chapter to read, with all the titles of Illana being stated for paragraphs at a time, and it was done numerous times. There was so many instances where it just felt like there was a stretch for word count being done and it made frustrating. It was pretty much after this chapter that I started skipping pages and chapters.The only chapter that I enjoyed, and I say this lightly, was the chapter with the 3 individuals who were going around gathering names of the dead. It was the only actual dark and emotionally pulling chapter.

Ultimately the reveal of what the Wrack was also very disappointing. It was lackluster and honestly made the journey through the story not worth it for me. It honestly makes me feel less bad about skipping so much in the story.

The idea had so much potential, but so much got lost in over building the world and losing focus on the actual plague. The one super good thing, is that Cover, that its a gorgeous cover!

Plague stories don't particularly interest me. You would think they would with the abundant deaths and misery. I haven't come across too many. The best I can think of would be Mask of the Red Death by Poe. I'd seen Outbreak once in Middle School and have never watched Contagion. I don't go hunting them down is what I'm trying to say. My willingness to read this one was because it sounded different from everything I've read in recent years. A plague set in a fantasy world that didn't revolve around rats. How did it fare?

The Wrack is a shipwreck in a perfect storm. It was a struggle to get through this when it should not have been.

I believe the reason why it took me three days to finish this instead of what should easily have been one short night was the structure of the story itself. The story of the plague as it develops is nothing to argue with. It is the choice to make each chapter its own short story with self-contained characters that wounded my interest. Further in that respect The Wrack also doesn't adhere to that rule either.

The first few chapters of the book focus on certain characters as the plague starts to affect those around them. The king's son is the first victim and it is initially believed to be the work of poison. A healer is summoned who quickly realizes that this is a sickness whose cure is beyond their reach. A plague. It becomes evident that they are in grave danger and the healer rushes to dispatch a warning as well as alert the King his son is dead.

After that start, you would imagine that this book would be remarkably good. It is an excellent beginning. Things become jumpy from here on out. I was hooked, armed, and ready. I stood on those frontlines waiting for greatness. Then I was forced to sit down. As I type this I'm reminded of so many unresolved storylines. It hurts because what we are given is good. The problem is as soon as I become invested in these people, their chapter ends and I'm given over to others. If this book was intended as a collection of short stories that would end each section with the horrors of the plague as it affects each group of people, that would almost have been better. The use of certain characters for multiple chapters, then dropping them for most of the book, only to bring them back later on for one or two more, then to drop them again before the ending results in a very jumbled feeling book.

Out of all those random middle chapters, two particularly stood out for me. One of which three people travel throughout a city going door to door to record the names of the deceased. There is a poignant moment when the person who had been doing the writing realizes his book has no more room and after being kind and composed the entire time to those suffering he finally loses his calmness and runs off screaming. One of his partners picks up his abandoned book and returns to the temple to get a blank notebook and only then does she feel the weight of what she is truly holding. The weight of their souls exists in those words. Otherwise, they would be lost. Only memories to be erased.

The other involves crew members on a ship. They discover a ghost ship filled with the dead. One member wants to burn the ship while another wants the crew to take it and return with two ships. Words get exchanged and they duel to the death. It is an odd story because the two crew members are a man and woman who it is believed are interested in each other. The instances from getting along to a sudden death match come quickly, and then the female remains after having stabbed her once-possible suitor. In the end, with the help of another crew member, they carry the fallen up to the ship's crows nest so his dying sight can be of the land. I'm not sure why this story spoke to me especially as none of these characters return or are mentioned in the rest of the book.

Much of the chapters are short and, to me at least, were irrelevant. When we finally return to the people who interested me at the beginning of the book, strangers come into the town and declare the nobility has to pay and atone for their deeds. This goes nowhere. There's also a mist that contains monsters which is also largely unimportant except for I believe in the end it's revealed the monsters transmitted the Wrack to cattle which in turn affected everyone else. Talk of these monsters comes up a few times in descriptions but there's no larger story about these creatures. With all literature, we get the story that is told to us. What I wanted was a larger conflict. It was a cool idea that didn't amount to anything.

Another moment that bothered me was that at the beginning of the book we are introduced to a Seer which are people with special sight gained through the use of various gem glass eyes. It is mentioned that not a lot of people are willing to become Seers because of the cost of losing an eye but throughout the book, we are introduced to quite a lot of them. It is something that stuck out and dragged me through the rest of the book.

After the first few chapters, we meet Yusef. His introduction made it seem like he would have a great presence in the book until he tells his daughter to investigate the plague in his stead. He does have one more chapter later on in the book but then disappears from the story forever. His daughter is another sporadic character that has her chapter and then disappears largely.

The plague is what connects these disjointed chapters but it doesn't pay off. Not when the inhabitants of this world are interesting and I want to read more but there is not enough. That's the fault in this book. It is only twenty-five chapters when it would have benefitted from being fifty or sixty. I wouldn't have minded all of the single stories if the main ones were fleshed out more. The Wrack doesn't reach the promise of what it is capable of. The writer took me to the Cheesecake factory, sat me next to the case, and wouldn't let me order a slice.