Odd Hours

While I didn't read all the reviews of this book on Amazon, I agree with the one-star reviews. This was the most disappointing of the Odd series by Koontz. The story, while it did jump right into the action, dragged. There was clearly not enough material here for an entire book. And after all that dragging, the ending is left open with lots of unanswered questions that seem completely irrelevant--the coyotes, the bell, the sewer grate business. And the supporting characters were disappointments--a few of them had potential, like Hutch and the woman who gives Odd the gun--but they were not as well developed as the characters in the first Odd novels. And there are pages and pages of annoying dialogue with Annamaria, the new character who at first seems to have a central role, and then spends the bulk of the novel hiding. I approached this book with a mixture of excitement because I love the Odd character and apprehension because I thought the series might be getting stale, particularly after the third novel, which was well-written but the story was lacking. This one was not well-written nor was the story good. I fear that over the last 3 novels of this series it will just get worse. Read the other one-star reviews; they are not wrong. What a disappointment for a long-time Koontz fan. I gave it 2 stars because there was still some entertainment value, however minimal, being written from Odd's point of view.

If you haven't read the previous Koontz novels with the character of Odd Thomas you might be little lost, although not so much to impact the story of this book. It will make curious to read the others. Odd Thomas is one the best characters developed by Dean Koontz!

How long will Dean Koontz keep dragging Odd Thomas into his novels? When will Odd finally join Stormy on "the other side"? It doesn't look like Koontz is stopping anytime soon. This story ends ready for the next novel to begin.

In Odd Hours, Odd Thomas picks up three more companions that he will be taking with him on his next adventure. These comrades include: Annamaria aka "The Lady of the Bell" (who is the most interesting character in this book), Blossom aka "The Happy Monster" and you guessed it - a golden retriever! These three living companions will join his two traveling ghosts of Frank Sinatra and Boo (the ghost dog).

Aside from the drawn out dock episode in the beginning which really made for a sloooow start to this fourth Odd Thomas story (and reminded me too much of the drawn out chair escape episode in Intensity), Odd hours was a pretty darn good book!

I still favor the third in the series, Brother Odd (Odd Thomas Novels), but Koontz gave us lots of interesting characters in Odd Hours, which makes for a very interesting read.

I loved the refrigerator magnets mentioned in the book as well as "The Hall of What Would Jesus Do?".

Besides having several dogs in his novels, Koontz also is known for adding characters with disabilities. Since my wife was born with Cerebral Palsy and I was born with a Cleft Pallet, I couldn't help but laugh at the following dialogue:

"You've got a one-eyed paraplegic brother"

"Yes, sir. With a learning disability"

"Does he have a harelip too?"

"No, sir"

That is probably not funny to anyone but me, but I've included it for the heck of it!

Outside of the world of Odd Thomas, my other favorite Dean Koontz novels include: By the Light of the Moon, Lightning, Life Expectancy, False Memory, From the Corner of His Eye, Cold Fire and The Bad Place.

I have been a Dean R. Koontz fan for over twenty years. I have read all but three of his books published after 1975 and a couple prior as well. My first and still favorite is Watchers, with Lightning a close second. I am an avid reader, but I tend to stick with the authors I know and love.

I think I'm done with Mr. Koontz.

If you've read more than two of his books, you begin to notice a pattern. The hero is always the same--flawed and weak but determined. The heroine is fierce and strong, but emotionally scarred from a troubled childhood. The villian, in their many incarnations, are always clean and meticulous, assured in their superiority. The Odd Thomas books are a little different, I will admit that, but some of the differences are not necessarily positive.

Anyway, I've gone through this before with his books, but Odd Hours is slow, boring, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. There is so little happening in this story, yet it's takes approximately 350 pages to tell it? Some would call it suspense, I guess, but to me it was agonizing.

The story didn't catch my interest (and I had the book in my possession for two months by this time) until just before Frank Sinatra took matters into his own hands. PolterFrank kept me going for about twenty pages, then I lost it again. So many of the supporting characters could have been interesting, but they were there so briefly, it didn't matter. I admit, I could have put the book down, but Mr. Koontz is such a habit for me by now: He writes a book, I read it. I used to reread his books, but I don't anymore.

I never felt like Odd was in danger. How could there not be danger when nuclear weapons are involved? Where's that kind of suspense? Even the parts when he had a gun to his head were over so quickly, it didn't matter.

Old habits die hard. I finished the book. I am satisfied. I have to say, the only way I did finish it was to read only the first sentence of every paragraph. If it got interesting (two or three places), I would read more. This may be hard to believe, but it makes me sad that it's come to this.

I will always respect Dean R. Koontz. I still hope that they'll make a movie out of Lightning and Twilight Eyes someday. (Two movies for Twilight Eyes to do it justice.) I really do love a lot of his books and I would highly recommend Watchers, Lightning, Strangers, Twilight Eyes, Whispers, and Cold Fire.

i am really surprised by some of the reviews i am reading on amazon and on the internet in general for "odd hours" because in my opinion this was the worst odd thomas book the first scene in the book took about 65 agonizing pages to get through (this is coming from a huge odd thomas/dean koontz fan i loved the first book, the second wasn't bad but not the best and the third was phenomenal) i was really surprised by that because in the first book the first scene was great and i couldn't wait the read the rest of the book because it was fast paced and full of action, it felt like this book wasn't really written by dean koontz but some sort of ghost writer impersonating him. the ending left a lot to be desired and left alot of unanswered questions, i understand that he wanted to leave it open for another book but seriously he needed to answer the important questions about the new female character that he added - does she have some sort of psychic power and if so what? as a reader i was left with the impression she had some sort of psychic talent but dean koontz never offically said she did, i don't like that i have to make am assumption on a vital part of who she is, i didn't like that the cover of the book made it seem like stormy was an integral part of the book **whether that was his fault or the fault of some publisher i don't know** but it was deceiving and it was a major let down when she was mentioned only a few times at the end and it was never explained why she was mentioned and how the new female knew about her and what she had to do with anything it was like she was mentioned to mention her and not real purpose...these are a few of the many things wrong with this book
i didn't like it and have talked with others who agree with me i feel like i wasted my money and should have just checked it out from a library **although after that i would have felt like i wasted my time** i hope this helps someone and that maybe there are a few people who agree with my rant =)