Mesmerizing and very thought provoking.
Many thanks to Random House and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This dystopian novel begins at some unknown point in the future with a group of humans living on an archipelao consisting of three islands. One, Prospera, is where the elite live - people whose sole reason for existence is to enjoy and create beauty, art, and pleasure. Each citizen has a monitor embedded in their arm that keeps track of their physical and psychological health. When your monitor gets below 10%, mandatory retirement, or reiteration, is necessary. One can always choose reiteration at any time if they so desire. "Retirement" means you travel to the island known as "The Nursery" where your memory is wiped, your body renewed, and you begin life again as a teenager. These teens are brought to Prospera to become wards of couples under contract (married) who desire to become parents. The third island is known as "The Annex" and it makes everything else possible. The Annex is where the servants live - in squalor and poverty and filth. They provide all the manual labor, including production of food and materials, for Prospera, as well as filling all the blue collar jobs. They are conceived, born, live, age, and die like regular humans.

Proctor Bennett is what is known as a Ferryman - he helps those ready to retire as they make their way to the ferry to return to the Nursery. Throughout his entire life Proctor has had dreams, unusual dreams that cause sleepwalking and that are supposed to be impossible in Prospera. Then, he monitor starts dropping alarmingly fast with no apparent cause. Meanwhile rumors are spreading of strike and unrest among the Annex population and when Proctor is called to take his own father to the ferry, things rapidly go downhill. His father gives him several cryptic messages and Proctor ends up having to force him onto the ferry.

These messages are disturbing and lead Proctor to question everything he's ever believed. He must uncover the truth behind the unrest and the dreams before it's too late.

As is to be expected in a Cronin novel, the plot is intricate and twisty and very well done. The characters are believable and intriguing and you want to keep reading. While I really didn't like the end, the twist was fantastic and I definitely recommend this book to fans of dystopian and mystery stories. 4 stars


Disclaimer: I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Proctor Bennett is living his best life. On Prospera everyone does, no sickness no death. All the people on this hidden island are content and happy with their lives. Everyone wears a monitor, the monitor keeps a check on the health and well being of al the citizens. Proctor is a Ferryman. The Ferryman takes citizens who are aged or unhealthy to the nursery. The nursery is where you go to be reborn. Its and island all its own and no one really knows what goes on there. The citizens choose when to go to the nursery to be reborn. In this way all goes smoothly, until one day when someone puts up a fight.

The events of that day will follow Proctor for the rest of his days, and the way things are looking they're aren't going to be to many days left. The events on the dock that day are bad enough, but things are starting to get out of hand on the Annex as well.. The Annex is where all the people who maintain Prospera live. People of the Annex carry out the menial tasks for those on Prospera. They do not have health monitors and they give birth to their own children unlike those on the Annex. The mystery deepens as Proctors world begins to crumble around him. As Proctor searches for answers he is pursued by those who wish to silence him. There is something much darker at work here and Proctor must race to find the answers before it is to late for him and everyone else.

This is Cronin at his best. I promise this book does not disappoint. It is twisted in all the best ways and keeps you guessing until the very end.

I really loved this book! I’m a long time fan of Justin Cronin from The Passage series and couldn’t wait to get my hands on this new book. The plot was very well paced and the twists and turns were placed perfectly. The reveals were very effective. There were just enough characters to keep the story interesting without overwhelming the reader with personal details to keep track of.

This is my first Cronin book, and having not read his popular Passage series, I wasn't sure what to expect.
What I liked:
The dystopian setting had enough unique aspects and mystery around it to stay engaged with the world and I was eager to tease out what exactly was going on.
There are good resolutions and payoffs for a lot of the plot choices that made me look back at some of the book in a new, better, light. Cronin captures the intense emotions of being a parent in a way that hit deep, often with the mostly delightfully simple turns of phrase.
What was neutral:
There are a fair amount of action sequences- primarily car chases and riots. This is content that I tend to skip over in books no matter the genre. This is a me thing and not a book thing, so zero judgment there.
There is a very formal tone to the writing. At first I thought it was intended to conjure a kind of "bygone era" style that one might associate with the 60s in this dystopian world, but I think it might be more about the author's voice. Hard to say, it was neither good nor bad, just a noticeably different style from the more contemporary/colloquial tone of other novels.
I'm wary of dreams as tools in storytelling because generally it's a piece of non reality that while potentially informing us of the character's state of mind, usually doesn't add anything to the story. In this case the dreams are important to the plot so I'm trying to make my peace with all the dream content.
A lot of boat content. I have never wanted to know what anything on a sailboat is called and I have retained none of the names or details of the various boats in this novel. If you love sailing, you may be thrilled by all the nautical details.
What didn't work for me:
The book feels a little long in some places. Admittedly, I like a sharp and lean book, so this is veering into personal preference territory, but I do think that paring down the story just a little bit more might have helped with pacing.

Thank you for the opportunity to review The Ferryman by Justin Cronin. I've read a bit of this author's catalog before and was quite excited to sample this new offering. I'll start by saying that it wasn't as enjoyable to me as The Passage, but I think that is on me rather than any fault of the author. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood for a particular book, and I will likely revisit this title in the future and give it another go. This novel is well written and I believe that Cronin's fans will be largely quite happy with The Ferryman.

I found the author's writing style and his voice just weren't landing with me. While I was reading this work and life were busy and I wasn't finding as much time as I usually do to read and every time I came to this my mind would be wandering, I'd reread the same page several times, I'd be asleep soon after starting a chapter, so on and so forth. So I finally put it down for good after about 15% and picked up something more entertaining. Hope the books finds another audience who can appreciate it for what it is.

@netgalley thank you for the ARC. I read a Justin Cronin novel several years ago and liked it, so requested this ARC. But this is a scifi future type of book-not my favorite. So unfortunately I did not finish this. It was not for me.

"A group of prisoners is chained in a cave facing the wall. Behind them is a group of puppeteers, and behind them, a fire. The puppeteers move their puppets back and forth, creating shadows on the wall. The prisoners can’t turn around, so all they see are the shadows. Look at the dog, they say, look at the house, look at the lady walking her dog by the house. They have no way to know that the shadows aren’t the things themselves, but reflections of them."

Proctor Bennett is a ferryman. He lives and works for Prospera, an enclave that's separated from the rest of society. On Prospera, people aren't born, and they don't die. Instead they are "retired" when their time comes, and that's where Proctor comes in, to take them on the ferry to the nursery.

But then he's asked to take his father on the ferry, and and he tells Proctor that he isn't real, that nothing is real, taking Proctor away from the safety of his neat life and into something much greater.

I really enjoyed this even though I was confused for the first 2/3. But it really came together. There are lots of homages to other sci Fi books/movies but it's still original.

Thank you netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This latest offering by Justin Cronin once again takes on a journey to a unique way of life.. In the islands of Prospera, some people live in paradise, with their every need met by a small army of workers who...don't live in paradise.

People don't die of natural causes. Instead, they are 'recycled' to return in a new body as a teenager when their health and well-being fall below ten percent measured by the implants in their arms. Proctor Bennett, the main character, serves as a ferryman to transport people back to the Nursery to have youth restored as a new person. But from his dreams to his wife's behavior to his treatment by other people, Proctor realizes something is not right.

The servant classes become angry and demand more rights and a bigger share of the good things. Calling themselves 'Arrivalists,' the lower class begins to agitate for more power. Soon, Proctor is enmeshed in a class struggle where he can't be sure what is real or who to trust.

Proctor, and the reader, are in for some surprises when the situation is resolved. This book could be a standalone or could have a sequel. Those who enjoy books about complicated relationships with a twist of science fiction will really enjoy this one.

Oh I tried, I tried to read this book so much. I remember being entranced by the Passage and unable to put it down, but getting bored by the Twelve and never finishing it, let alone whatever book 3 was called. So I was hopeful when a new book was announced. But I could not get into it. It just felt dense and trite and slow and wholly uninteresting. I’m in a different place in my life now, and much more interested in sharp novellas than doorstops of novels, so maybe that was part of it? In any event, this book was not for me.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book. But I did enjoy complexity this book presented and the dystopian aspect. However, the book progresses slowly :(

The Ferryman tells the story of an island paradise known as Prospero which is hidden from the rest of the world. Proctor is a Ferryman who counsels and helps the elderly go to an island known as The Nursery where they “retire”, their bodies and minds are renewed and they come back to Prosperos as older teens to live with their newly assigned guardians. Prosperos is a perfect utopia and everyone who lives there are happy and healthy and have everything they could want or need. The Annex is another island where all the laborers live who are there to serve the Prosperos residents. While reading this book, I was getting mad vibes of The Giver, Logan’s Run, Lost, The Matrix, and a few other books/TV. No matter what happened, I just couldn’t predict what could possibly happen next. Eventually, an event happens whereby Proctor begins to recognize that everything is not as it seems and the twists and turns started blowing my mind. Yes, there were times when I felt as lost as Proctor but those twists! Brilliant! Everything finally made sense. The Ferryman is a big mix of dystopian, sci-fi, and fantasy, and I loved it all. Although this book was almost 600 pages I flew through it too fast and purposely would stop reading because I didn’t want it to end. I’m definitely going to experience a book hangover after this.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley of allowing me to read this ARC

DNF 30% in.

From the first page, THE FERRYMAN felt like mint chocolate cotton candy: a novel flavor combination which initially is a heady experience but eventually feels bland in its sameness. It’s startling at first, because it’s a flavor which does not normally belong in cotton candy and seems at first like a cool idea, but ultimately contributes little to the conversation of what makes a tasty dessert. I do not, generally speaking, want the book equivalent of cotton candy, but the writing is gripping and the world was interesting at first.

Ultimately I stopped reading when the bland misogyny became too frustrating. In a world where every marriage is a contract with a time limit (the parties can renew), it makes no sense for the main character to have a level of jealousy and possessiveness that in the real world is cultivated through an assumption of monogamy as a default. I read an ARC and so will refrain from using quotes in case the final version changes substantially, but this was a setup I've read before executed in a way that was frustrating to read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC!

This story follows Proctor Bennet, a ferryman who transports people to die on an island when they reach the end of their life. But it is so much more than that. This dystopian fantasy novel is complex and will have your mind spinning.

First off, Justin Cronin is one of my favorite authors after reading “The Passage” trilogy…I want to thank the author and Random House Publishing Group through NetGalley (fabulous site) for allowing me to view an ARC of this new work by this author. I was so excited to receive this to give an unbiased review.

This author is amazing at getting your attention right off the bat and keeping it throughout to the end. This book does that in spades. When you think you are on the right track and have the story figured out, something else happens to totally change the narrative! Dystopian is my genre of choice but I truly believe that no one does it as well as Justin Cronin. Mind boggling to say the least. How would you like to live on a special island where everything is provided for you, including children, partners and even your employment? If you begin to not enjoy yourself or are overly stressed, you will be sent through “The Ferryman” to a place to erase your memories and start over (at least that is what is supposed to happen). There are many characters to weed through, and this is one of those narratives that you must pay attention to all of them to finally figure everything else in the end….even then there will be questions that cause you pause….is this true/real or not? This story is definitely worth the ride and I totally recommend you jump on and take it!

The Ferryman is excellent science fiction. Justin Cronin was already one of my favorites thanks to The Passage trilogy so I was so excited to get this ARC.

The Ferryman follows Proctor Bennett, Director of District Six Department of Social Contracts, aka Ferryman, in Prospera - an island state hidden from the rest of the world where everyone is biologically advanced and the weather is tropical perfect. There's the Annex, a neighboring island where the support staff (regular humans) live. Finally there's the Nursery. The Nursery is where new Prosperans are 'born' and where the elderly or retired Prosperans go to start over.

The Ferryman was giving Blake Crouch energy. After I finished my brain felt like it had a workout. The Ferryman is complex, and intense, and amazing. Every time I thought I had it figured out, I was wrong and I love when a book does that.

Thanks to Netgalley and Ballentine Books for the copy.

I really enjoyed the book. Blending elements of The Matrix, Phillip K Duck and even, in some ways, the story of Moses the author creates a wonderful Sci-if journey that is a read the I couldn’t put down. I felt the characters were well developed and I was left feeling satisfied with the ending.

Outstanding! This novel was a layered world-building masterclass for me.

Let go of what you think you know and follow Proctor Bennett, a skilled ferryman,  as he escorts the people of Prospera across the waters to the Nursery, an island where a peaceful transition awaits. This is the construct, a necessary social contract meant to provide long, fulfilling lives to elite citizens. All seems idyllic in Proctor’s comfortable existence . . . a great job, respect, and a happy home . . . until one word is uttered and the seemingly solid edges of his reality begin to fray. Should he just shake it off and adhere to the given protocols or follow this new mysterious thread of questions and watch the world around him unravel?

Get thee to the bookstore, The Ferryman cometh in May!

I'd like to thank NetGalley for an advanced copy of The Ferryman for my unbiased evaluation. 5 stars

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
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Honestly, the less you know going into this the better.
Genres: dystopian, sci-fi, speculative fiction.
Prospera is an isolated island community where people live wonderfully pleasant lives. Then they retire to the Nursery where their bodies are renewed and memories wiped to start a new life fresh again.
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What I liked:
-This book was sort of bananas and I loved the wild and crazy ride it took me on.
-Such an interesting cast of characters, each ones POV gave a great viewpoint to what was going on in the story.
-Lots of fun discoveries in this story!!!!!! Such great discoveries!!!
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5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I really don’t want to spoil anything for this book, but it was fantastic. Absolutely enjoyed. Highly recommend.