Z/Web

Author: Lee Child

This is another Jack Reacher book, more recent, but it’s a prequel, set back in the first day of 1990 while Reacher was still in the army and his brother and mother were alive. That’s rather cool.

Unfortunately, the plot is… unsatisfying. The story involves an army conspiracy, but Reacher’s not in a position of great power, so he’s forced to wade through a ton of government bureaucracy. We see hints of classic Reacher personality as he cuts through some of the red tape, but not nearly enough of it (as his “just do it” attitude in the other books is what makes him such an awesome character). A huge part of the book is us learning about how the army works, which, while interesting, isn’t drama.

A side effect of this plot — which involves several murders happening and Reacher investigating — is that be don’t learn what’s going on until the very end. Worse, nothing at all connects until about the 80% mark, which means for the majority of the book we don’t have a clue what’s going on, who the bad guys are, or where the story is going. That makes it a bit of a slog. It’s still interesting with side storylines and personal stuff, but the main plot feels almost like an afterthought.

Things do tie together in the end, though the whole thing is a stretch and a rather strange conspiracy, but I wouldn’t put this up there as my favorite Jack Reacher novel by any means. I do like the series and plan to read more, though.

This was my favorite book as a kid; I actually had it memorized and would recite the whole thing. I was curious to see how they were able to turn such a short story into a movie.

The previews didn’t look that good — mostly showing slapstick comedy and silliness — but it’s only got some of that (though it’s still more than needed). I initially liked how they added in the twist of the boy wishing a bad day on the rest of his optimistic family so they’d know how he feels, but then that means the whole movie is really about the rest of the family’s bad day, not Alexander’s, which is… not what the book’s about.

The film still has some good moments and is quite pleasant with good lessons for young kids, but it leaves out some of the best parts of the book. For instance, in the book the key line — repeated throughout — is the boy wishing he lived in Australia. In his mind, that’s as far away as he can get, so he’d rather be there than having a bad day at home. In the movie they that turn that concept into him being obsessed with Australia (with kangaroo posters on his walls, etc.), with zero mention of why (which is the only thing about his obsession that actually matters). Rather bizarre.

Another criticism which touches on a pet peeve of mine since it’s an industry I know something about: the whole plot point about the mom’s book company somehow printing a book with a bad typo after she’d given the okay on the final proof is just absurd. It might have worked if they’d offered some explanation for how it happened, but they never did, and just blamed it on the printing company. Ridiculous.

Overall, I’d give this a C+: a decent effort, well-done for the most part, harmless, nice morals, but somehow falls flat and doesn’t do justice to such a classic book. The key flaw is having the bad day be about everyone else, not Alexander, which is just weird.