Jan 26 - Feb 4, 2011

The Donor
Frank M. Robinson
Medical Thriller
Published September 2005
371 pages

6.5/10

    Our friend Dennis has the unfortunate fortune of awakening from mysterious surgeries sans organs.  Like most people, he prefers to keep said organs.  And so, he is... on the run!  DUN DUN DUH.
    This book reads like it was banged out for the paycheck - for the most part, it's flat and uninspired.  I barely cared at all what was going on, and I kept falling asleep after a few chapters.
    The plot itself is hardly original (although not much is these days).  To be fair, I enjoyed the whole genetics plot device, and the bit in there with black lounge singers having white babies... I honestly had no idea what the who-diddley was going on with that, and therefore kept me somewhat stimulated.  Because otherwise, all the other "twists" were hardly wavy they were so callable.  I had everything else nailed from the get go.  It pisses me off to no end when a writer keeps dropping hints at a big reveal that's supposed to be this explosive EARTH-SHATTERING conclusion that rock me to my very book adoring core - and I've already got it pegged.  Talk about a friggin' let down; so anti-climatic.
   Basically the story was based on the whole "chase-near miss-chase-near miss-ad infinitum" formula, which gets ridiculously pedantic after the first couple of escapes.  It's almost akin to R.L. Stine's "buildup-scare-buildup-scare-ad infinitum" Goosebumps formula, except the one I'm reading now is supposed to be for grownups, with (I'm assuming) have a slightly more sophisticated palate.  See, once you know something is coming, you're not scared anymore, you're just waiting to get it over with because you're hoping for something really shocking.
    I found the characters to be pretty one-dimensional as well.  I mean, there were enough of them (a butt-load, really) with a rough three or four adjective/anecdote background, but otherwise, they just seemed to be there to... say and do stuff.  Obviously, that's what characters do, but they're also supposed to think and feel, and, in turn, make you feel for them.  Not here.  They're just... blank vehicles for the protagonists to move from action point to action point, if that makes any sense.
    And the twist (while still being the most interesting part of the entire book) wasn't even made entirely clear!  What the hell!  I still don't quite understand the whole genetic lab/surrogacy thing.  Maybe it's too subtle for my coarse intellect, for maybe it just wasn't well thought out or even logical, but I didn't quite get it.
    Also, did anyone else notice the author's weird aversion to semi-colons?  So many commas that would have been a tremendous amount better had they been punctuated with that little dot on top.  
    So I'd say The Donor started out decent enough, immediately descended into formula, and attempted redemption with a not very well executed ending.
    Another filler book.