The Three

A Novel

By: Sarah Lotz

Narrated by: Andrew Wincott, Melanie McHugh

Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he's right?

The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes. With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage.

Dubbed "The Three" by the international press, the children all exhibit disturbing behavioural problems, presumably caused by the horror they lived through and the unrelenting press attention. This attention becomes more than just intrusive when a rapture cult led by a charismatic evangelical minister insists that the survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse. The Three are forced to go into hiding, but as the children's behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, even their guardians begin to question their miraculous survival....

©2014 Sarah Lotz (P)2014 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Lotz is a ferociously imaginative storyteller whose twisty plots will kick the stairs out from under you. She's a talent to watch." - Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls

Book your ticket now!!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

If only for the performances alone, I highly recommend this offering. The 2 readers are simply stunning. Even several weeks after listening to it, I think of the characters and the way they were brought to life in the reading.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Three?

The conclusion, though somewhat contrived, is truly a revelation. I can anticipate ( and hope for ) a sequel.

Which scene was your favorite?

As above.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

True Survivors?

Any additional comments?

This is a sprawling, powerful and fascinating book. I can't say enough about the performers . Highly recommended.

Good story, not great as audio book

This story was well written and the narrators were very talented. However, many portions were hard to listen to asan audio book such as website addresses and narrated blog handles/names.

Better read than listened

I liked the story but since most puff the story is correspondence over social media or email it might have served better to read the physical version of this book rather than listening to someone read all the hashtags and user names.

Not a Horror

Despite what the description says. It's more a suspense book. If you like very clear cut endings, this is not for you as the ending is very open ended.

performers were fabulous. Had no problem following the different characters at all.

Um, I am kinda freaked out

I dont know what I just experienced. It was creepy but then just weird. Not scary but then kinda scary. I couldn't stop but I wanted to at times...I need more answers!!!

Pre Apocalypse

This is a character driven epic about the pre-apocalypse. I was initially throw off by how the story is told but once I found the groove I grew to appreciate the narrative and how the novel moves forward. It has a lot of characters, some recurring, some not recurring but all tied to the events of black Thursday where four simultaneous plane crashes happen with the only remains being 3 child survivors.

What makes the story interesting is how society responds to an unexplainable phenomenon. While all the four crashes have scientific explanations for how the planes went down the speculation of why is what sends ripples throughout the world. The idea of four plane crashes is just enough for people to blow off as a coincidence but the three child survivors are perfect fodder for religious nuts and the tin foil hat types. Everyone has their theories but evangelicals and conspiracy theorists have a unique style of influence and with the internet at their disposal, they can be more influential than ever. The book is very meta. There is a book within the book and much of the story moves forward, via emails, interview transcripts, tweets, and skype sessions. It is really like you are reading the transcript to a documentary. I can’t imagine how much work it was for Lotz to create and put all of these various puzzle pieces together to form a coherent narrative. She pulls it off, though. There are some reoccurring characters and the way Lotz intertwines the stories of the three kid survivors and how the plane crash affects them and their families is impressive. There is a beautiful side story about one of the kid survivor’s grandmothers and her having to in the kid while caring for her husband that suffers from Alzheimer’s.

Honestly, with the way things are going on in the world, I found this book to be relevant and prescient on many levels. It has an international feel to it as the plane crashes happen in the Florida, UK, Japan, and Africa. The internet and the spread of information plays a role in society’s downfall. Religious fanatics use the events of “Black Thursday” and internet to bring upon a dystopia they think reflects their prophecy. I see there is a follow-up book called Day Four which I intend to check out. I am definitely in on this series and am looking forward to seeing what Lotz has next. Also, I want to add that I listened to the audiobook version of this novel and it is performed well. There are so many characters and the two narrators do a good job.

Utter waste of time

Don’t believe all the good reviews. This book will leave you with all your questions unanswered. Maybe I dozed off and missed something important, but the ending never explains what is actually going on or why all these mysterious things happened. You know...the reason I struggled through 14 hours of annoying “interviews” that were supposed to pass for a storyline. The voice acting was very good, that was the only enjoyable part of this whole experience

No answers

I found parts of this book very intriguing, but I kept waiting for the crescendo that never came. It felt very much like an unfinished story.

The setup was neat. The book is a series of interviews that piece together a tragic accident and the aftermath for families and the world written by a fictitious author who eventually becomes part of the narrative. You really are drawn into the private horror that some families living with the changes fate has foisted upon them.

But, ultimately, I found myself to be annoyed with the book. Some of the consequences surrounding the fallout of the accident were too far-fetched and ill-conceived to be a believable or even logical part of the story. Aside from the feeling of an unfinished story, perhaps my biggest issue was that the setup of the book didn't allow the author to spend more time fleshing out the larger sociopolitical elements of the world. That setup made revelations in the latter half seem incongruous to the overall story.

So, the book goes like this. Lots of time on heart-wrenching family stories, the world falls apart, the end.

But, perhaps, I simply don't want to admit I live in such a fragile world.

Not what I hoped for

SPOILERS

Anticlimactical is an exaggeration because it never built up to begin with. Storyline was a good concept, but there were literally zero "events" and even the deaths of the children were absolute yawners. The children are boring aliens who chose to die to get out of here? Humanity bored them? Girl, same.

Different

I normally would not like a book put together like this. It is written as reading a book within a book and continually changes view points of multiple characters some significant and some just adding another small piece to the puzzle. The author with the help of some great narrators pulls this off well to make a smooth and highly interesting story. I don't want to say much to spoil the plot other than I had to listen straight through. The ending left me a little disappointed as I never really knew for sure what the kids were, it just gives you an idea of what they are but not an definitive answer. The narrators were excellent, they did so well that you could forget your listening to a book and just become immersed in it.