{"id":1698,"date":"2016-06-27T16:08:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T23:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2017-12-18T08:30:59","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T16:30:59","slug":"review-ex-patriots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/27\/review-ex-patriots\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Ex-Patriots"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ex-Patriots\"<\/a>
\n Ex-Patriots<\/a> by Peter Clines<\/a>
\n My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

Full disclosure: I forgot I had read Ex-Heroes<\/em>, the first novel in the Ex- series, until I was informed that someone had \u201cliked\u201d my review of it. So I went back and re-read what I had written, and thought to myself \u201cI should read the next book if I liked it so much.\u201d I was waiting for the library to send my several reserves anyway, so why not: did the on-line thing, and started in.<\/p>\n

Not much in the way of praise, I know, but that\u2019s what you get with books that are sequels and genre fiction to boot. The truth is, we can only ask if the second book in a series carries the momentum of the first. Because, of course, no one is going to like, or even read, a second book if they didn\u2019t like the first one. Ex-Patriots, I am happy to report, sufficiently continues the Ex-Heroes<\/em> story.<\/p>\n

More or less, Ex-Patriots<\/em> is paint-by-the-numbers, but it\u2019s a template Cline invented himself in the first novel. I mean, have you ever liked a book enough that you wanted to read it again? If you liked Ex-Heroes<\/em>, you can read it again in this sequel.<\/p>\n

(And if you liked my review, just apply it to this second novel as well.)<\/p>\n

Some people disparage genre fiction, so to them I offer that Cline is a better writer than your average genre fiction author. Other people see genre fiction for what it is: built in tropes that provide materials for new stories. To those people I report that Cline does more than just take advantage of the available tropes; he develops them into something new. <\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be honest; people who don\u2019t like genre fiction aren\u2019t going to come anywhere near the Ex-Heroes series. Good. Who needs those judgmental jerks. The rest of us who just want to sink our teeth into a goodread will enjoy the Ex- stories.<\/p>\n

I mean, so far. I\u2019ll let you know when I\u2019m done with the third one.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ex-Patriots by Peter Clines My rating: 3 of 5 stars Full disclosure: I forgot I had read Ex-Heroes, the first novel in the Ex- series, until I was informed that someone had \u201cliked\u201d my review of it. So I went back and re-read what I had written, and thought to myself \u201cI should read the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: Ex-Patriots”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-ro","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1699,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions\/1699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}