What a RIDE!!! This book was so awesome!!! I am not into Sci-fi/fantasy reads but this author is changing it for me. I don’t want to spoil the fun, but from start to finish it keeps your hooked, you think you know what’s going on, and there are so many twists and turns that you are left in shock. This is not a book to skim through this is one to sit and enjoy whole heartedly….. and it was so damn heartwarming. Love love love!!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House - Ballantine for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

In a post apocalyptic future, three islands are home to what’s left of humanity. Prospera is home to the elite and the novel’s title character. Segregated on another island, the Annex, are the workers. Finally, a third mysterious island, the Nursery, where the Ferryman, Proctor, brings the elderly Prosperans to be recycled and begin a new life.

Proctor begins to suspect his world is not quite so idyllic after he is selected to escort his adoptive father to the nursery.

Justin Cronin builds a complex world only to tear down every assumption the reader makes as he leads you on a suspenseful journey across islands and afar.

The world building was enjoyable, the plot twist didn't land in terms of credibility for me but others may still like it. 3.5-4/5 stars.

What a nice find. This was the first book I've read from this author and I really enjoyed it. The story was different from anything I've read recently and really captured my attention. It was so well written and the characters were fantastic.

4-4.5 stars

This was such an interesting story and the synopsis immediately drew me in. A group of survivors are living on an island paradise in the archipelago of Prospera where they enjoy long, fulfilling lives. However, they have to wear a monitor in their arms that keeps track of their health and mental well-being. If it falls below 10%, they must retire themselves and travel on a ferry to the Nursery where their bodies are renewed and memories are wiped clean before they are released back to Prospera.

Proctor is one of the ferrymen who transports these people, but he hasn’t quite been himself lately. He has been dreaming, an impossibility in Prospera, and his monitor percentage has dropped drastically as of late. The day he is scheduled yo retire his own father, everything changes. Unrest has been building amongst the citizens and there are rooms of revolution on the horizon. Proctor soon finds himself ensnared in a much larger cause that will lead him to question everything he’s ever known.

I enjoyed this book and thought it was a really unique, BUT it was also really confusing as the story progressed. I kept having to go back and reread sections to see if I missed important details, and once I assumed I had an idea of what was going on, something else would happen to confuse me even further. While I liked the style of writing and the creativity of the story, I caught myself asking “what the heck did I just read?” one too many times. I definitely recommend and hope others come away having a better understanding of how it all pans out.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for providing a copy of this book to review.*

Science Fiction is not in my usual wheelhouse, but I have been wanting to expand my reading horizons. The concept of the book sounded super interesting, futuristic, and dystopian. People living a futuristic lifestyle on an island paradise, but their life clock is limited and tracked by a monitor implanted in their forearms. As the book description says, “the truth isn’t what it seems.” Considering this book is over 500 pages, it takes you on a long wild ride. I did not find any lulls in the story, it moves along at a decent pace. I did have to reread a few sections, just to make sure I understood what was happening. While Proctor Bennett is the main protagonist, there are many characters and a lot of detail in the story (I would suggest jotting a few notes down as you read along). I am trying not to give away too much of the story, there is a pretty big plot twist about 3/4 into the book. I was not expecting this surprise, but my head was already spinning by the time I reached 75%. I would recommend this book to readers that like science fiction, a detailed story, and are ok with plot twists. For fans of Logan’s Run and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Scythe + The Memory Police + The Giver. Characterization is weak, everyone around Proctor Bennett is mindlessly fulfilling their rote tasks in an uninspiring utopia. The second half turns more interesting and complex as Proctor digs deeper into this shallow world, but I don't know if it is justified. A very familiar sci-fi story that doesn't offer enough to cut above the rest of it's sources of inspiration.

🎧 Audiobook Review 🎧

On Prospera, its residents are sheltered from the outside world, living peacefully all the while being monitored. When their monitored percentage falls below 10 percent, they are retired to an Island called The Nursery. There their memories are wiped, their bodies refreshed, their souls reborn.

Proctor Bennett has made a lifelong career as a ferryman, his job to help such individuals move on to retirement, whether they are ready or not. But lately Proctor hasn’t been feeling like himself. It all started with his dreams, something that doesn’t happen to people living in Prospera. Then his own health seems to deteriorate, right around the same time he has to help his estranged father retire. It’s all of this, coupled with other questionable encounters with other individuals, that cause Proctor to question everything he’s blindly believed as true for so long.

The Ferryman is a hefty read, its audio weighing in at the 20 hr mark. While the narration was gripping, I felt the story was bloated. In the beginning I almost bailed before finally getting a grip on the story. Then, around the halfway mark, I became disoriented again as the story flip flops multiple times between what’s real and what’s imagined. This happens so much I started to zone out. Honestly, I’m actually still not sure what happened, so if you read this me can clarify, that would be great.

While author Justin Cronin is truly a gifted writer with an extraordinary attention to detail, I argue that less can sometimes be more. Had the story been trimmed significantly I think I would have enjoyed it more and maybe, even understood

For this one, just go in knowing as little as possible. In my opinion. There is so much that I honestly just don't want to give anything away.

The Ferryman is a smart, mind-bending, twisty story of humanity and all our layers. As well as the problems we create. It is science fiction with an emotional core that beats through the entire world.

Cronin is a fantastic world builders (which I knew from The Passage) but The Ferryman felt transporting. I was on Prospera. In the Nursery.

This is definitely a story to slow day and savor. I will absolutely read it again in the future as I am sure there are little pieces I missed in the haste to figure out WTF was going on the first time around.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read this one early!

In hindsight, I have no idea why I requested this book. As I re-read the synopsis, it's not anything remotely like what I would normally read. Dystopian/fantasy is not really my thing. But wow, what an intriguing and thought-provoking story! It skirts around a lot of current "hot" topics without shoving them down your throat - climate change, social inequities, government over-reach - but they're included in a way that the reader is allowed to form his or her own opinion, which I greatly appreciated. This is a sole-character storyline, which I think is difficult to pull off, particularly with a book of this length. There are supporting characters, but Proctor carries the weight of the book. It's hard to explain my draw to Proctor's character; he wasn't particularly relatable, but as the story progressed, I found myself feeling sympathetic toward his struggles and his situation. I thought he was misunderstood, and I started rooting for him to win whatever battle he was waging. On the negative side, it felt a bit long for me; I did reach a point where I needed it to wrap up and come to a conclusion.

Bravo to Justin Cronin for taking a genre I don't normally read and turning into a captivating and provocative book that held my interest and made me realize that stepping outside my comfort zone can be a good thing.

I think I liked this book but think I need some more think on it with all that happened in this book. This story follows society in an unknown place and time where once you get under 10 percent of life left you retire yourself and are reincarnated into the nursery to start a whole new life. In this society though there is a clear class struggle as their are extremely rich and the servants who live in the annex. The servants start a rebellion known as the arrival and try to gain back some power. This is all going on while our main character Procter a ferryman (a person who helps those who are ready to retire) has to retire his father while doing this his father starts talking about mysterious things that made no sense. That is until security agents start following and people at the dock that day start to go missing Proctor begins to suspect something more is going on he teams up with a young women he meets named Tessa together they start to investigate what exactly leadership is up to. I will say this book is far from boring and had me hooked. I will say the hardest part was keeping the vast amount of characters straight and towards the last quarter their were a few places I found myself a little lost. I will say this is a whole unique book and think if you enjoy complex sci-fi this book will be right up your alley. I would like to thank Netgalley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.

As the story unfolds, the reader is slowly introduced to the world building. A couple of crazy/interesting things happen right away that have you question what’s happening but it’s more about creating interest and peaking your curiosity thank causing any confusion.

As the story continues, the world building continues and is easily understandable.

Part sci-fi, part fantasy, I was really intrigued by this story.

However, the secondary POV felt completely unnecessary to me. That caused me a few confusing moments and didn’t add anything of value to the story excerpt to make it unnecessarily long.

As well, the middle to end of the story was just way too drawn out for me. Really interesting concept that didn’t need all the extras. The secondary POV and the lack of getting to the point in the last half really detracted from the overall enjoyment for me.

So a good story, but you’ll need some patience or a ton of down time to read those extra pages.

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. I had high hopes for this book since I was such a huge fan of The Passage by the same author. It did not disappoint! It kept my attention from start to finish and I’ll read more by this author in the future.

3.5⭐️

<b>That is the design of the world, to trick us into believing it is one thing, when it’s entirely another.</b>

Proctor is a Ferryman who takes retirees to the ferry that will take them back to the Nursery to start again. He enjoys his job and likes providing a calm presence at the end for the people of Prospera. But when the retiree he is assigned is his father, Proctor must try his best to maintain his composure amidst his sadness, but loses it when his father starts to freak out and saying strange things on the way to the ferry.

Proctor has also been dreaming, which is impossible on the island utopia. Once retirees are reset, they come back to Prospera completely wiped clean and start again at age sixteen. Proctor has always had dreams, and used to sleep walk, much to the concern of his parents, and he starts dreaming again as an adult. He begins questioning his reality, and tries to find out the truth.

This book is good, but I don’t think I’m in the right headspace for it right now. I like the characters and the kind of mystery of trying to figure things out, but the pacing is kind of on the slower side and trying to piece things together is overwhelming. I think the drones watching the people on the island was also really giving me Truman Show vibes, as well as the way the people around Proctor act. Overall, not bad if you’re into sci-fi, but hard to get into if you're not.

This was a very interesting book with a dystopian setting. The book is set on a utopian island and they are recycled and live very long lives. The book held my attention and I was not expecting the twist that eventually came. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC.

I don't quite know what happened with this book, I just could not follow it. I didn’t want to DNF but I put it down so many times in favor of other books that I practically forgot what was going on. Way too many characters and most of it was boring. Unfortunately the plot
has pretty much all been done in other books and movies. And it was far too long, very repetitive.

Published by Ballantine Books on May 2, 2023

The Ferryman surprised me. More specifically, I’m surprised I liked it. While I was reading it, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. The story makes little sense until about two-thirds of it has been told. Once everything came into focus, my mind unclenched and I realized that Justin Cronin had been hiding the real story.

I can’t describe what the novel is really about without spoiling the surprise, so I’ll try to convey a sense of what it seems to be about. The first 300-plus pages introduce about a dozen characters whose shifting roles are likely intended to puzzle the reader.

The protagonist, Proctor Bennett, is a ferryman. Proctor lives on an archipelago called Prospera. At the age of sixteen, he became the ward of his guardians, Cynthia and Malcolm. Adopting a ward is something that people in their position are expected to do. At some point after becoming Procter's guardian, Cynthia did something Prosperans aren’t expected to do. She rowed into the sea, wrapped an anchor around her ankle, and jumped into the water.

Prosperans don’t have children in the usual, biological way. Children are raised on a separate island called the Nursery and brought to Prospera. Not having to raise kids — never having to worry about protecting or losing an infant — might be why their lives are so good.

Everyone in Prospera is hardwired to a gadget that is implanted in their arms. The gadget calculates something like a wellness score. If a resident’s score becomes too low, a Writ of Compulsory Retirement is issued and a ferryman arrives to escort the resident back to the Nursery where they undergo a regenerative process. They aren’t supposed to remember their old lives when they are reborn. As a child, Proctor had dreams that were explained as echoes of a former life. Dreaming is uncommon among Prosperans.

Prospera exists behind an electromagnetic barrier called the Veil that shields Prospera (representing the best of the world) from the worst of the world. Nobody has ever passed beyond the veil and returned.

Prospera seems to be a utopia. For a time, it put me in mind of Erewhon. Both novels begin with a detailed description of a society that is very different from ours before it becomes apparent that the differences are not as great as they appear. At times, Cronin almost adopts Samuel Butler’s formalistic writing style.

As is true in Erewhon, the reader realizes that Prospera is far from utopian. The wealthy citizens live extraordinarily good lives. The servant class lives in squalor. Wealthy Prosperans don’t seem to notice.

Prosperans need a servant class so they can devote themselves to creative and scholarly pursuits. Proctor’s wife Elise is an artist. Her mother is someone important. Procter’s career as a ferryman is a bit disappointing to his family, although he is a managing director of the Department of Social Contracts.

Procter meets a female child who seems to come from nowhere. She wants Procter to teach her to swim. When she disappears, Procter realizes that she seems to tie into the dreams he used to have.

As the story progresses, life in Prospera becomes unsettled. Watchers use drones to maintain surveillance on protestors and use cattle prods to keep them in their place. A woman named Thea is part of a social or religious movement that uses the slogan “Arrival come.” The word Arrival conjures an event like the Rapture. Procter’s life and marriage also become unsettled. Things look bleak when his wellness score falls into the single digits.

Late in the novel, long after we learn what the story is really about, we discover that the story hinges on a morally dubious choice that Procter made, a choice that causes many to despise him. Did he make the right choice? The question is intriguing because it isn’t easily answered. In any event, Procter evolves into a multifaceted, sympathetic character who, in the end, must make a difficult choice that will define his future in a world that, for most of the novel, he didn’t understand.

A theme of haves versus have-nots ends in a way that should please most readers (I assume most readers will take the side of the have-nots, but I might be mistaken). I suspect that the novel’s transition to a story that requires the reader to adopt a new understanding of Prospera will also please readers. I have to admit that I didn’t see it coming.

I was certainly glad the change came because a story that seemed to be falling apart suddenly became clear. The story is structured to fall apart and then to be rebuilt in a way that gives new meaning to the fallen pieces. I give Cronin props for his creative misdirection. I also give him credit for crafting such a fresh and original plot. The novel might be wordier than necessary, but I enjoyed the words.

RECOMMENDED

Ebook/Science Fiction: Bam, this book is awesome and I read this whopper in two sittings. This book is definitely a summer read. It was fantastic.
While reading the novel, I found that some events didn't really make sense. Then in the last couple of chapters, it all comes together, except Marcus. And at one point, I felt the setting was a continuation of City of Mirrors, only decades later.
I highly recommend this book to sci-fi fans. I want to thank Netgalley for a copy of an ARC book.

Justin Cronin is a name that has just been 'haunting' me for years, I've wanted to read the passage and will soon, but this was my first venture into his books......and I was let down.

I ended up Dnfing this at 45% because I found myself mindlessly reading for the sake of finishing it and for me that is not how I like reading and spending my time.
I feel like if you like a slow dystopian book this is perfect for you. For me though it is not what I want, I needed it to move quicker.

Nothing felt real, none of the characters gave anything. It all felt like it was a set up for anything the Procter needed to do. I was just so not invested in what was going on.

I will read more from this author just because The Passage is a hit with so many people I know.

This post apocalyptic story tells the story of Proctor Bennett, he is the Ferryman who helps people thru their retirement process and onto the ferry, using force when necessary. But he soon realizes he has problems and when he eventually has to retire his father, it gets more complicated. I'll be honest, this type of science fiction, post world story is not for me and I struggled thru this, though it was very well written and had beautiful language and dialogue. Fans of this type of genre will love this. I did not but still recommend it to others.

I didn’t think I would like this book and wanted to dnf it multiple times. But I pushed through and ended up enjoying it. It’s not my normal reading choice