Why would David Fincher bother optioning this book to make into a movie? It saddens me that writers like this can get publishing contracts. It reads like something I remember from a creative writing workshop in college. Every character is a type instead of a fleshed out creation. You have the menopausal wife, the ignorant husband, the vapid teenage daughter, and the smooth criminal. It reads like a treatment for a movie by someone who has no real depth to their writing. This novel makes popular

Dr. Adam Bloom takes pride in his job as a psychiatrist, he loves to help patients that are dealing with the pressures of life. On the other hand, his life is as hectic as his patients not only does he have to deal with his daughter's erratic behavior but his wife is a thorn in his side. Married to a stranger, he attempts to reconcile his marriage by trying to reignite the flame but to no avail. Marissa his twenty two year daughter makes things complicated when she warns him of a intruder that i...

Accused of being trigger happy after blowing away a home intruder, Dr. Adam Bloom's hopes of being a national hero turn south in a hurry. Left to pick of the pieces of a shattered marriage, a dysfunctional relationship with his daughter and tormented by the press, Adam's once perfect world comes crashing down in a blaze of glory and gore. This is Starr's most mainstream novel to date - more 'The Follower' pacing and pop fiction than 'Cold Caller' white collar noir but equally as enjoyable. Panic...

This read like a well thought out creative writing assignment. Though the story held my attention, Starr’s writing style leaves a lot to be desired, as does his character development. Like one reviewer already mentioned, the characters go on long tangents about uninteresting and irrelevant topics. There were no sympathetic characters to speak of, actually. This was a very brisk read, thankfully, and well beneath Starr’s previous work.

This book had it's high points and low points for me. The characters flaws seems to be a bit overwritten and magnified beyond what was necessary. I normally like a book with a clear protagonist and a clear antagonist. The lines blurred in this one, which was probably intentional.Overall I enjoyed it, but would have really liked to learn more about Johnny's background and hear less about Dad.It was the first book I read by this author and something tells me I will be checking out his others.

This book sucks. Man, it was hyped as being freaking awesome! But it sucked. Straight up sucked.The book jackets actually told you who dunnit. By page 10 I hated every character and I knew who did all the murders and why. There was absolutely no suspense whatsoever. Mostly because I was just really annoyed by all the characters; but the person I'm most annoyed at - the Author. Jason Starr, you are not the bomb. Your female characters are one dimensional. Your male lead was an asshole. Your crimi...

This wasn’t for me. The premise was good. Two guys break into a family’s home thinking the family is away. Turns out family is home. One burglar gets killed by the homeowner. The other gets away. Then the burglar who got away stalks the family and starts a relationship with the daughter. It all sounds like it will be a good thriller. Except it’s not. I didn’t care for any of the characters. I was bored reading it. It took me two tries to get through the book. I’m trying to think of constructive

One star for ignorance. The author is unaware that paramedics and police do not clean up messes made by bad people who have been shot to death in people's homes during a burglary. I can suspend disbelief for aliens, monsters, ghosts etc. but not stupid.

This is my first Jason Star and from the outset I was impressed. A doctor shoots and kills an intruder in his house and his relationship with his daughter and wife become frazzled as a result. All good stuff. The daughter then takes up with a guy who turns out to have known the intruder and who turns out to be psycho. Ok. The writing still has some quality but our credibility is starting to be stretched. I was still turning the pages but in the last portion of the book it just turns into pure ri...

Oh my gosh - I don't know what to say! I mean the story, the idea itself is actually not to bad but seriously? This is supposed to be a good book? Don't think so!But let us start at the beginning :) this was my first Jason Starr novel! I bought it because I thought it sounds great when seeing it in the bookstore. This was already a few years ago (I always buy too many books to read them xD). Well anyway in the beginning I really thought this could be a good book, even when I finished the first c...

I'm usually a huge fan of Mr. Starr. I consider him to be the Jim Thompson of Generation X. His plots are always noir-ishly dark and you often can't tell much of a difference between his heroes and his villains.His latest book starts with a house robbery gone bad. And the rest of the book deals with the consequence of that robbery. Unfortunately, I just couldn't seem to get into the main protagonist or his family. They were just too unlikeable and I didn't want to root for any of them to succeed...

twistand turns what a book very good thought:)

Stupid people doing stupid things...a family in crisis, a home invasion gone wrong, a stalker out for revenge, but all dumb dumb dumb. Yes, it was a page turner, I wanted to know what happened, but I disliked every character, felt no sympathy for any of them, some of it was so totally unbelievable, lots of diatribes about morals and guns and drugs and killing and affairs and these people all seemed sick and obnoxious and completely self-absorbed. Glad it was a fast read and I got done with it qu...

Yeah, Jason Starr is now officially one of my favorite authors.I already thought he was pretty cool after I read The Chill, a graphic novel he wrote for Vertigo, but I was slightly biased because I pretty much love everything Vertigo gets on ink. While I liked the story, The Chill wasn't horribly memorable to me...but it did have boobies. Lots and lots of boobies.This book reads extremely fast! I kept telling myself "only one more paragraph" up until the point where I'm like "ok I can finish the...

It was a slow moving plot, but not really a slow reading book, if that makes sense. It was pretty sick. And when I got to the end, the photo of the author was kindof what I envisioned the psycho in the book to look like, so that was creepy.The book was good, but not great.Adam Bloom, a psychiatrist, wakes in the night to find 2 intruders. He shoots and kills one, then spends a great deal of the book basking in the media attention and thinking he's a hero.The second intruder vows to get revenge a...

One of his better works, though not quite as good as Hard Feelings. It's about on par with The Follower, and probably just a tad better. Full disclosure, I was going to quit about halfway through. I got bored by the usual Starr-isms. I'm glad I stuck with it, because the ending was really great! About as good as Savage Lane, not as good as Fugitive Red. Better than MOST of Twisted City, although the Twisted City ending takes the cake. If you like his work.... then you're probably going to read a...

This one has been on my "to read" list for years and I finally got around to it. Definitely a page turner of a thriller, not really a mystery. To me the biggest drawback was the fact that every character was unlikeable, even including the secondary characters. Whenever you started to have for empathy for a character, they said or did something stupid. This continued all the way to the very end of the book. Still, a good summer read, and I definitely flew through it.

Panic Attack by Jason Starr is the type of book you read when you're staying in the house all day and do not feel like watching television. The book itself can serve as its own single entertainment, even better than television. Panic Attack will have you on your toes, anticipation dancing on your fingertips until they flip the book to the last page, and have to settle with the very last sentence. Although this book was very well conducted, the lack of stating emotions for individual character's

Read this as follow up to the excellent Hard Feelings. This one... not so much. Good premise. Man shoots burgler unnecessarily during a home break in and must slowly pay retribution (to the burgler's partner). Good: wife/husband dynamic- the inner life that Starr writes about very well... in that we see how self deluded the characters are (heros in their own story) .. I love that part. Also the wife has some appealing faults. The adult live at home daughter is not much of anything, yet she is th...

A really assured thriller that left me thinking I will definitely read more from this author.