Rating: 
Summary: Sweet read
Review: I loved this book. It is sensitive, thoughtful, deeply personal, and opinionated. The word choice and poetic narrative give the book an emotional color that can be in turns heart-wrenching, comic, suspenseful, and mysterious. It's not necessarily a read for people who take a harder-edged view of life. If there is some heavy-handedness in the final message, I feel it was earned. Plot holes . . . I saw them, and I didn't care. Koontz wrote his heart out.
Rating: 
Summary: High-velocity Koontz
Review: A boy (?), a dog, great female heroes, a private eye, a memorable villain, and a terrific philosophical, passionate message make this novel as good as anything Dean Koontz has ever written. He's still got it!!
Rating: 
Summary: If you are looking for depth in this book, don't bother....
Review: Of course, like everyone else, I love Koontz. I have enjoyed the spirituality of his more recent books and was looking forward to a thought provoking read, but I hated this book. Each and every character was either too good (Curtis, Old Yeller, Leilani, Aunt Gen, the Twins, the Senator's wife) or too bad (Maddoc, Leilani's Mom, the Senator, Bad Aliens, Bad FBI, the mercy killing nurse). The only characters even halfway believeable were Noah and Micky. I can't even begin to describe how frustrated the huge, gaping plot holes left me. Aliens learning about us by watching movies for heavens sake, could there be any more overused cliche.
On a more serious note it seems to me that Koontz overlooked his chance to take a deeper look at bio-ethics, a subject he obviously feels strongly about. By contrasting Leilani's and Noah's sister's predicaments and the resources our society is willing to spend on one and not the other, plus the impact they have on the families involved, he could have tackled some of the tricky situations involved. I would have enjoyed an intelligent discussion... oh well....
Rating: 
Summary: Strange, overwritten, and way too long!
Review: I nearly gave up on this book after 200 pages, and then finally the plot started kicking in. I'm glad I hung in with it, but overall, just an average book and definitely not Koontz' best. (Try From the Corner of His Eye and Sole Survivor for great Koontz reads!) The characters are fascinating, and the plot is interesting once the author gets over his "simile/metaphor-itis" and gets down to storytelling. It's obviously an attempt at a different kind of style, and instead of being amusing which is the intent, it's just plain obnoxious after awhile. An example from Chapter 10 - "Eighteen-wheelers loaded with everything from spools of abb to zymometers, reefer semis hauling ice cream or meat, cheese or frozen dinners, flatbeds laden with concrete pipe and construction steel and railroad ties, automobile transports, slat-sided trailers carrying livestock, tankers full of gasoline, chemicals: Scores of mammoth rigs, headlights doused but cab-roof lights and marker lights colorfully aglow, encircle the pump islands in much the way that nibbling stegosaurs and grazing brontosauruses and packs of hunting theropods had eons ago circled too close to the treacherous bogs that swallowed them by the thousands, by the millions." Oh brother. Is Koontz trying to write like Michael Chabon?? Give me a break! Another example from Chapter 19, "Leilani could detect that dangerous inclination more reliably than the most talented fungi-hunting pig could locate buried truffles,..." Yawn and eye roll. It is a testament to how much I enjoyed Koontz' other books, that I hung on with this one and completed it at all. Chop out the extra 200 pages worth of silly literary devices, and there's a decent plot here.
Rating:
Summary: Very Fantastic Book
Review: This is close to the best of Koontz! Seize the Night my favorite. But One Door Away From Heaven keeps you turning the pages, keeps you guessing, there is everything in this book. I love the humor Mr. Koontz puts in the middle of incredible drama.
He uses beautiful descriptions and much pathos in some sections. A very enjoyable piece of literature. I hope he writes till he's 100!
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece!...This novel has it all!! Thanks Dean!
Review: This novel is the absolute best of Dean Koontz! The story is plausible, and the characters are very defined.This is not however, a "monster" story as "Phantoms", and the like. It's a story of a very loveable little girl, who has the wrong type of mother, and a terrifying stepfather who is the "monster" in this
tale. I'd like to personally thank Mr.Koontz for this great read!I have to admit,though, that my Golden Retriever "Jodi" thought that Curtis's dog, "Old Yeller", was the hero of the story.
Rating:
Summary: Imaginative and Different
Review: Overall, I thought the book was very good. The story was unique and interesting. The characters were well-developed. It was sad to read about the little girl's home situation, because so many children do have unfit parents in real life. In fact, the book's plot can be described as an interesting combination of fantasy and reality. The ending was somewhat idealistic, but I guess it had to be after such a depressing lead up. The bioethics theory profiled in the book is very scary, as there are people who actually think that way. Hitler was one of them. In summary, the book is definitely worth reading. Koontz is an extremely gifted writer. Even his bad stuff is good, and this is one of his better novels.
Rating:
Summary: Loved How I Started, HATED the Ending
Review: While "One Door Away From Heaven" is fascinating, from the beginning, I knew exactly where the plot was going (whether I've just read too many Dean Koontz novels or the plot is tired is up to you to decide). The plot incorporates three different stories and ties them all together... strangely. However, it seemed to me that anyone reading of "the motherless boy" a.k.a. Curtis and his escapes from his mother's killers' brutality would easily tie to abused, neglected and disabled Leilani. Why the incorporation of so many children in this one? Then there's the plot of Michelina Bellsong, abused as a young girl. Her sudden revelation seems unlikely (even if small). The incorporation of her character is understandable, I suppose, but seems somewhat unnecessary. As miracles go, the one of Extra Terrestrials is to be used only sparingly. This book seems overly padded and underly interesting, of course I never was a fan of sci-fi. While it does offer an exciting plot, I prefer my books a little more realistic.
Rating:
Summary: ONE DOOR AWAY FROM MEDIOCRITY
Review: Having read almost all of Mr. Koontz's works, this one comes as quite a disappointment. And the main reason is the superfluous, redundancy of his prose. Good Lord, Dean, as one reviewer noted, why in the world did you litter this book with so much unnecessary description and philosophizing? You've done it before, but this time, you've really overdone it! There's one passage in which he describes a sunset that is so overwrought, I burst out laughing at the imagery. So, Dean, please remember your books are meant to entertain, not teach poetic English or convert readers to a strange, if pleasant, philosophy. Now, as far as the book and its plot, Dean interweaves many of his past motifs into a sometimes incoherent, although intriguing, storyline. My favorite character was Noah Farrel, and I'm not really sure, but I guess because he seemed so tragic and had such a deep love for his sister, he came across a little more credibly. In his Curtis Hammond plot, Dean does manage some very funny dialogue. But, how many more superdogs is Dean going to give us? And it's fairly obvious early on who Curtis really is. The way all of the characters get together is pretty far-fetched, but I'll abide by the standard of creative license. The characters of the twins, Polly and Cassie, are great, and I really enjoyed them, too. The ending is so "Mary Poppinish", it almost smells of a series?
Well, Koontz fans, I'm sure we'll stick with him, but I hope the bougainvillea suffer drought, and Dean returns to thrilling, instead of frustrating us!
Rating:
Summary: The impossible... possible.
Review: I am a fan of Dean Koontz. That should be stated first. There are moments in his books that will stay in my mind forever. His ideas can be brilliant. His suspense can be unbearable. His characters can be unforgettable. But what I found with "One Door Away From Heaven" was that so much effort was put into making the main characters unforgettable, that the story never caught up.
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A short plot synopsis: Leilani Klonk is a disabled girl whose parents are evil. They believe that aliens will tkae her away and heal her, although Leilani suspects that her father will just kill her. Leilani meets Micky Birdsong and her aunt Geneva and tells them her story. Micky then decides to do whatever it takes to help the endangered girl. Meanwhile, a little boy makes his way across the country, being chased by the government and something even more sinister. All these plot lines come to a head in the conclusion. ------------------------------------------------------------- The novel is 600 pages and the story spans only a few days. Most of the pages are filled with character devolopment that at times fall somewhere between sugary and obnoxious. Nevermind the fact that Koontz mines some of his usual themes (i.e. a dog who knows good from bad) and character traits (i.e. wry wit, self depreciating humor). These things can be overcome with a fresh plot or ground breaking suspense. But neither is done here. The plot has many tradional Koontz trademarks (aliens, a brilliant psychopath, dogs, everyday people being heroes) and it really doesn't delve any further than that. Even the non-traditional themes of Bio-ethics and of a Creator (God) aren't explored enough to add freshness to the storyline. They barely peek through the traditional Kooontz material. I was a little disappointed in the ending of Koontz last novel From The Corner of his Eye. It is the same again in this novel. What little mystery and suspense the story holds in the first half of the novel goes unused in the end. In summary, I found One Door Away From Heaven to be a novel of good intentions. A lot of time and effort was put into making us enjoy the characters and have our heart strings pulled. But the characters (which are very likeable or dislikeable in the case of the villians) become so extreme in their traits and we get to see SO much of every step they take, that the plot is muddled and uncohesive. So, even though I liked the characters immensely, they won't stick in my mind as great. A lack of cohesive plot makes them float away from my memory. I thought that would be an impossiblity. But alas, it is not.
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