It's hard to deny that Five is conceptually interesting. But unfortunately, its execution ended up feeling more gimmicky than anything else.
We follow five characters as they converge upon the training station. In a few minutes, one of them will die. Who will it be? The omniscient narrator guides the reader along until we get to that pivotal moment and all is revealed.
Let's start with the characters. When you have a story like this with an ensemble cast, where five lives intersect and change over a brief period of time, it all comes down to the characters. And the ones in here are not really what I expected. They each come with a shtick—the narcissist, the addict, the psychopath, the child psychopath, and the one that only interacts with dead people. If that all sounds a bit over the top, well, it really was.
Instead of being well-rounded individuals with some flaws, the five people in here were all taken to the extreme. Whatever their problem is, it defines every bit of who they are. There is no subtlety, there is no humanity. And when everyone is so exaggerated, it can be hard to connect and empathize with them.
Did I care what happened to these characters? No. Was I curious who would die? Not really. Because to lose one unlikable character is pretty much the same as losing another, so it was all one big shrug for me.
The other major issue is the writing. I'm sorry to say, but I found it kind of obnoxious, especially the longer it went on. The author very much chose to lean into the omniscience of the narrator, to the point that they actually came across as an insufferable know-it-all.
Review everyone’s positions. Consider what they might do next. Consider what you know that they do not, and will not, until it happens, until the train that is headed toward them is unable to stop in time.
I understand this is trying to break the fourth wall, but result was just unappealing. Instead of showing the reader and letting us figure things out for themselves, we are told what to think and how to feel every step of the way.
Life and death happen regardless of what you think, or guess, or put in your online review, or dream of, or work for, or choose, or want. Or deserve.
Yikes! This sort of grating, repetitive, and overexplanatory prose was everywhere, breaking into pivotal scenes and dispensing platitudes like they might actually be rare nuggets of wisdom.
I get it. This was supposed to be some sort of revolutionary, never before seen style of prose and storytelling. But maybe, just maybe, there is a reason no one in the past has attempted this type of narrative. And it's because instead of coming across as compelling, it's just off-putting.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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