While Odd Thomas is a mystery thriller through and through, Forever Odd, the second book in the Odd Thomas series is more of a psychological thriller, with Odd being proactive than he was in the previous book. Like the last book, this one is in a genre that I'm not overly fond of. Unlike the last book though, there were moments in this book that made me want to stop reading because they were a lot more suspenseful than what I'm used to reading. And there were definitely moments where, if it had been a movie, there would've been jump scares. Even It by Stephen King did not illicit such a response from me when I read it for the first time a few years ago. However, there was enough in this book to make me laugh or at least snicker at it more than once and that kept me reading.
Forever Odd is a much faster book to read than Odd Thomas was, because while they are pretty much the same length, about 67 chapters or so, most of Forever Odd is Odd narrating with very little dialogue to read. Whereas in the first book, he was usually talking to Stormy, Little Ozzie, Chief Porter or Karla Porter. Here, he's by himself, trying to find his friend, Danny, trying to escape from the bad guys, or with the bad guys, hoping to escape from them. And because there isn't much dialogue and a lot of description, I finished the book in a couple of days, whereas with the first book, it took me almost a week to finish it.
This book takes place six months after the end of the first book, and Odd is still struggling with what happened in that ending. He's on leave from The Grille, the breakfast diner he worked at in the first novel. But when his best friend, aside from Stormy that is, Danny is kidnapped and Danny's father murdered, Odd ends up in a race against time to find Danny and take down the bad guys. But he discovers that Danny was taken to lure Odd into a trap, as the bad guys were aware of Odd's special powers.
This novel is a good example of what Odd was hoping to avoid by keeping his abilities a secret from all but a select group of people, those people being Stormy, Little Ozzie, Terri, Chief Porter, Karla Porter, and Danny. Of course it was bound to get out eventually being how much he was a hero following the massacre at the mall at the end of the first book. Odd was fully aware that people like Datura, the woman who kidnapped Danny, were out there and would want to exploit his abilities for nefarious reasons. Which isn't really something that's been explored a whole lot in superhero fiction, outside of things like Iron Man and Batman where the argument is about the weapons and technology that Iron Man and Batman use since they don't have super powers.
This novel felt personal for Odd. In the previous book, and I assume in the later books, Odd's mission was about protecting Pico Mundo from criminals and saving hundreds of lives. This book is a rescue mission. A rescue mission for one man, who was a close, personal, friend. Because of that, this book felt more intimate than the previous book felt.
Odd and Danny's friendship reminded me a lot about the friendships that I have. Any time they had a scene together, which was infrequent, their banter reminded me of my friendship with Brad. With me being Danny of course. Though unlike Odd Thomas, I doubt Brad has the ability to see dead people and fights crime as a result of that sixth sense.
This book probably has the best line I have ever read. At the beginning of the book, Odd is visiting Little Ozzie and his cat, Terrible Chester and they're talking about something, I can't remember what exactly. Then Ozzie says something and Odd asks him if he's making fun of him. Ozzie replies, "If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends. How else would one learn to avoid saying those things that would elicit laughter from strangers? The mockery of friends is affectionate and innoculates from foolishness". That quote resonated with me because my friends mock me all the time. Especially when I say something stupid. Of course the quote doesn't say anything about family openly laughing at each other, but since most of my friends are like family anyway, I guess it does mean that.
The villains were a lot weirder than they were in the previous one. They felt similar as both sets were into occult stuff, but Datura and her goons felt more dangerous than Robertson and his crew did in the previous book. I think that's just because Datura was targetting Odd specifically, while Robertson was targetting all of Pico Mundo, and Odd just happened to be there. Which is interesting that Koontz went personal like that so quickly in the series.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall I thought that Forever Odd wasn't as good as Odd Thomas was, but it was still quite good. It just wasn't to my taste like Odd Thomas was. This book was a lot creepier and more psychological in nature. Which is fine, but it's not something that I care much about in my entertainment. It was an interesting book though to see how Odd was doing following the events in the previous book. It's not even a disappointment given how much I loved Odd Thomas. This book just wasn't as much to my taste as the previous book is. It was still good though so I'm going to give Forever Odd 7/10 stars.
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