Book Review: The Loop by Ben Oliver (2009)


Let me begin by letting all writers in on a little secret: The ending is everything. Read that again.

That said, Ben Oliver’s The Loop left me incredibly angry, giving us one of the worst endings since the movie Sliver and casts the entirety of everything that preceded it into question. This is another one of those “I wanted to like it more than I did” books, this one about a teenage boy locked in a futuristic prison in some dystopian future. Despite immediate Hunger Games/Maze Runner vibes, I was still captivated early on by the simplicity of the plot and ease of prose. There is a lot of suspending of belief to be had, though, as you wonder just how many times someone can cheat death (which could be resolved by the book’s non-ending, if you read it that way). There are a lot of good characters but many of them seem to transform on a dime which doesn’t seem plausible, either. Add in some pseudo-zombies for good measure and you’ve got…something. On a positive note (which will become a negative note), just when the book’s events are becoming all-too predictable, we get the Big Reveal. Problem is, it comes so late in the book you’ve wondering how the author is going to resolve the turn of events in time. Spoiler alert, he doesn’t. Worse, upon the final sentence, you don’t know if there’s going to be a sequel or not. You could read the final sentence one way and think you’ve just wasted your time reading this book, or, you could read it another way and think there’s going to be a sequel and for the love of God why does every book these days have to be part of a series? So frustrating.

Having written this review I now like this book even less. Too bad; it had a promising start. This book is strictly for uncritical readers. 

Final Score: 5/10

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