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Book Review of Tsunami

Tsunami
ladeemist avatar reviewed on + 9 more book reviews


First Line: The container ship Moro Prince, bound from Manila to Los Angeles, had enjoyed three days of smooth sailing.

I love books about natural disasters: tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. It's the simple desire to see humans triumph over seemingly overwhelming odds.

A huge underwater volcano out in the middle of the Pacific is ready to blow. The result of this eruption is a 200-foot tidal wave which will hit Southern California. Millions of people could die. Seismologist Leilani Sanches has been watching this volcano, and believes this will indeed come to pass. The trouble is, when she tries to alert people, no one really wants to listen...especially real estate developers, gun runners, other sleazy capitalists and especially the educational facility she works for because they are looking for financial backing.

The plot of a natural disaster (the underwater volcano eruption and the following tsunami) was very interesting to read especially the facts which were brought out. When these events occurred, I was glued to the pages. Although I felt their effect on the Southern California coastline could have been brought out more.
The characters needed more development. Most of the people seemed to be rather incidental instead of a major part of the story. The relationship Leilani had with her co-workers, family, crazy ex husband, and Dave (the coast guard officer) needed more depth. The author started bringing in more characters, showing us what happened to them when the Tsunami was about to hit. This would have been a powerful addition if these characters had shown up earlier and been developed so the reader could get to know and care about them.

All in all, I'm glad I read the book because it did contain a lot of information that fascinated me. For a character-driven reader like myself, Tsunami was a bit of a letdown, but I will be on the lookout for other books by this author.