The Taking by Dean Koontz - At first I was like :O then I T_T

At first I was like :| but then I lol'd.
The opposite of this was my reaction when I was reading Dean Koontz's The Taking. It had a great idea, an out of the ordinary twist out of the out of the ordinary. It just isn't about aliens trying to invade the world just for the lulz; there is actually a motif. Well, motifs actually. Koontz doesn't directly tell the reader, "HOLY CRAP GUIZE! THE ALIENS ARE COMING! AND THEY WILL DESTROY THE WORLD!" Instead, he lets his characters have different speculations about the invaders and the reason why they're invading. There is an evolution of premise as Molly and his husband - which I forgot his name, because he's unimportant - experiences each phase of the invasion.
One thing I noticed about Koontz style is that he strives to be sublime and all-knowing. He goes around talking about analogies and insights about life which is so out of place with the narrative. He thinks his book is a classic. I'm not saying he doesn't have the right to think so though, but there is something more to a classic than pretentious one liners that point out to the reader what's the symbolic signifance of the elements in the book. If the reader can't identify the symbols on his own, then they can't be called symbols.
Koontz forces these so called symbols into the plot that the characters are obviously led by the story, instead of the characters leading the story. There are some really some random happenings that made me T_T.
The big bang of them all, the 32-font-size T_T, is the ending. It sucked. I swear. With all the development Molly's theories have had, you would think the end would tie them up together into one big revelation. There's a big revelation actually, but it destroyed all the premises Molly thought throughout the story. It's not a plot twist, but rather a change-of-plot demanded by Koontz desire to be prophetic.

I was like :O then I T_T

In the end, Dean Koontz's the Taking is just like the crappy horror movies Hollywood makes nowadays. It delivers nothing more than meaningless thrills and shocks. It's evident Dean Koontz tried to avoid falling to this pit of bad horror, but his way of adding "substance" to his novel just made the lack of substance of his book even more evident.

3 out of 5 stars for the :O factor.