A very satisfying conclusion to Justin Cronin's epic trilogy! I couldn't put it down and was very content with the way he wrapped up this series, and I really enjoyed the interesting "time jump" in the end. I love his story, his characters and his writing style and this is one of those rare books that I never want to end. I hope we are lucky enough to get another inventive series out of him in the near future!

I enjoyed the series and this was a good resolution to the story.

hird and final volume of the Passage trilogy. I think this was my favorite of the three. Edge of your seat, bite your nails kind of action in the second half, that I just couldn't put down. I am glad I found them late because I had a hard time keeping track of everybody in the second book and I read them back to back. I was glad to have some backstory on Zero and that all lose ends were tied up. I think this will be awesome as a movie! Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC

A brilliant conclusion to a fantastic trilogy. If you love horror you have got to read the Passage trilogy. It will restore your faith in the horror genre.

I really enjoyed previous books in this series, but this one was a DNF. Just couldn't get it into it for some reason.

The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin is book three of The Passage series and if you have not yet read The Passage then you cannot be a true horror fan. The Passage and it's horrifying sequel, The Twelve, rolled back the current deluge of horror/teen romance novels and brought back a creature of such horror and evil that we had forgotten to fear the dark. The bloodthirsty and ravenous vampire in all its base forms. The Virals. The City of Mirrors brings us full circle, from the horror of the Virals, to the horror of humanity and finally to the one who began it all. To the first Viral, to Zero.

"...The first handful of soil was the hardest. How did one do it? Alicia had buried many men. Some she'd known, and some she hadn't; only one she'd loved. The boy, Hightop. So funny, so alive, then gone. She let the dirt sift through her fingers. It struck the cloth with a pattering sound, like the first spits of rain upon leaves. Bit by bit her daughter disappeared..."

The hundred reign of the Virals was over with the destruction of the Twelve. Amy and her crew had succeeded in destroying them and wiping the scourge from the face of the Earth. Now humanity had the chance to rebuild, to take back their world. Alicia Donadio had disappeared as well as Amy. Peter Jaxon was left to resume a civilian life as he no longer was needed to hunt the creatures. Mankind, or at least what was left of if began to believe that their world was once again safe.

But Alicia Donadio, Alicia of Blades, knew better. After burying the baby concieved from the brutal captivity and rape of her body, she wants to lay down and die. She is changing. The blood of the Virals course through her but she is becoming something far different than what they were. But death does not come to her. It calls instead. A voice calling her to the ruins of the city of New York. To a place where he waits.

Amy knew this as well. As she turns into the monster that she destroyed, hidden deep in the bowels of a ship with Carter, the last to Twelve, she waits. She too hears the call and knows that the age of the Virals is not finished. But will there be enough left of the human girl to fight? Or will she be another beast that feeds on the blood of children?

Peter Jaxon, the Man of Days, has put away his weapons and seeks peace in his time. He has lost his family and the woman he loved in Amy. Now he looks to rebuild the world for the future that is to come. For the children who will not know of the demons that hunt in the dark. Of the Virals that no longer walk the Earth. But he is wrong. Far away from Peter's new world he waits.

In a dead city, he waits: Zero. The First. The Father of the Twelve. Surrounded by the memories of his human life and with a burning hatred for the girl who destroyed his Twelve. Amy, humanity's only hope, The Girl From Nowhere who rose up and dared to battle against him. The demon who was once a man, a man called Fanning.

Zero who waits. Waits for Alicia. Waits for Amy. Waits to take his revenge on all of humanity. Zero.

"...Amy thought for a moment, then shook her head. 'I can't tell. She's very sad. But it's like there's a locked box inside her. I can't get past it.' Their eyes met again. 'She needs you to trust her. Peter. I'm one side of her; Fanning's the other. Between us, there's you. It's you she's really here to see. She needs to know who she is. Not just who she is: what she is.'
'So what is she?'
'What she always was. Part of this, part of us. You're her family, Peter. You have been from the start. She needs to know that you still are.'
Peter felt the truth of her words. But knowing something was not the same thing as believing it. That was the hell of it, he thought.
'You're not going with her,' he said. 'I can't allow it.'
'You may not have a choice about that. Alicia's right, the city can't stand indefinitely. Sooner or later, I'll have to face him..."

In The Passage, Cronin revealed his vision of horror and fans of true horror were terrified and joyful. In The Twelve he then made his Virals second to the horror of mankind itself. A crisis, it is said brings out the best and worst in people and in The Twelve we saw the worst of mankind. Now in City of Mirrors he does the one thing we could not have ever expected. The riskiest option open to the author of a successful trilogy. He humanizes the evil itself and has us almost feeling sorry for the man that became Zero. Yes we can almost feel his pain and grief so much that we say; Yes, you are right! Mankind needs to be destroyed in the darkest and most bloody way possible. Yes we feel you Zero!

Almost.

Thankfully there is Amy and the hope she brings to the tale. A hope that is lost through most of the early telling as she is reduced to the Viral creature that must be kept sealed in a ship's hull and fed bottles of blood. There is Alicia, torn between the loyalty to Peter and Amy and the anguish of the lost baby she gave birth to. A baby who she could not mourn until she came to Zero.

Then there is the man, Fanning and this is truly his story. A brilliant man whose only love dies. Then in his grief, he commits an unforgivable act that leads him to flee the country and into the darkness that turns him into the creature that wages war on humanity. Cronin creates in Fanning a sympathetic character in Fanning. The brilliant boy who could not earn the love of his father, the man who could not earn the love of the woman he loved and finally, the creature whose desire to save the world is perverted into a raging hatred for it. He is equal parts, the dark and demonic vampire and in turn, a sort of Frankenstein's monster who turns on what created him and seeks its destruction.

City of Mirrors is brilliant. A fitting and challenging ending to the tale that began with the Passage. If you love horror, you have to find this trilogy and read it. It will restore your faith in the things that go bump in the night.

Great conclusion to the series. The novella piece was especially enjoyable. Can’t wait for more from this author!

This book is unreal. I love a good long book and moves the way Cronin concluded this wonderful trilogy. He is truly a wordsmith! I recommend this trilogy to so so so so many people!

I would like to thank NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Ballantine Books, and Justin Cronin for an advanced copy of The City of Mirrors for an honest review.

The third book in The Passage Trilogy has been a long time coming, but well worth the wait. The City of Mirrors takes us back to who the person was that became patient zero, the first vampire after the viral outbreak. This novel covers over a thousand years bringing us from the beginnings of the outbreak back to a time and place where what is left of the human race must once again fight to overcome the vampires or face extinction. As a trilogy it is important to read these books in order. I definitely recommend The City of Mirrors and The Passage Trilogy in its entirety.

Whew. Done. And what an undertaking this was. Not just for the author for producing thousands of pages, but for a reader for getting through it all. Cronin's trilogy was nothing if not expansive. Some might say overwritten. But upon completing it, one really gets a proper perspective to appreciate just how awesome Cronin's work really is. He created such a complete world of his own to end and bring back to life. And yes, the characters are exhausting to maintain in line and require a dramatis personae or a mental rolodex on constant rotation, but the sheer magnitude of it all is...well, once again, awesome. After all, a (fictional) world needs a population. But this is an epic with all the proper epic accoutrements and it's really pretty great. After revisiting The Twelve, which originally in literary form didn't manage to stick in memory, on audio read by the ever reliable Scott Brick, I decided to continue the form and listened to this one also. 23 discs, took a while. It isn't a slow read by any means, it's just...enormous. And still, for me, Cronin is never as good as when he writes dramatically. His actions sequences are perfectly good, but his writing really shines when he does character's backstories, for example. One of the best parts of this book was Zero's past, extended version. The epilogue was lovely too. One can't underestimate the significance of a perfect ending when it requires so much time to get to. Cronin did his trilogy justice. To recommend a read of these proportions is tricky, but for me it was well worth the time. Now why won't someone make this into a movie or at least a tv series? Wouldn't it be nice to have a nonembarassing vampire series? Something without diaries or teens or goths? Anyway, it's been some ride. Much fun was had. Thanks for the adventure.

A great conclusion to a well written and consuming series. It definitely leaves open the possibility of more in the series especially in the same world.

One of my most anticipated reads last year was Justin Cronin's final entry into his vampire trilogy that started with 2010's smash hit The Passage. At a time when vampires were starting to wear out their welcome and become a tired trope, Cronin managed to breathe new life into these creatures of the night. The result was a sprawling epic that was unlike anything I had ever read before. Whereas most postapocalyptic books follow a similar format - introduction of virus/mysterious creature followed by slow unfolding chaos and finally a band of survivors trying to end the threat and set the world back to normal - Cronin took an interesting and risky take on the genre. We get some of the traditional set-ups of postapocalyptic fiction, but a majority of the story doesn't necessarily focus on the downfall of civilization, instead it focuses on the aftermath. A bulk of the story takes place nearly 100 years after the outbreak of Virals and follows a band of survivors.

After introducing us to the characters we have come to love, Cronin switches the story around and focuses on Zero's backstory from the '80s until 2004. This is the story of his transformation (well the attack that led to his transformation). Creation of the Twelve he wanted revenge for what happened to him. Originally I wasn't sure I loved these sections, but they work and are devestating. They are long and initially I thought they threw off the story, but as I got to know his story, I thought they were excellent and offered rich and complex characterization. It really is an in-depth look at the mind of someone who has suffered to the point that it makes him want to create nothing but chaos.

City of Mirrors Introduces readers to a new generation of characters as the characters from the first two installments begin to age and answers a lot of questions while leaving plenty of others. Fantastic conclusion to a modern classic in the horror genre.

After the second book in the trilogy, it was hard for me to believe there were any more layers to build onto this story. I'm so glad I underestimated Mr. Cronin's imagination, world building and ability to churn out some seriously good writing. I absolutely loved The Passage, but will admit when I read The Twelve, I started to feel bogged down. (These are looong books!) But I was thankful to find that City of Mirrors brought back the momentum in the first book and provided a solid, and even poignant, conclusion to the series.

In the final book of the Passage Trilogy, we learn about Fanning, Patient Zero (or simply Zero) in the viral outbreak that started it all. FYI, we don't like him. We also get a view into what has happened with all the major players we've met in the first two books, which was good because having to wait a year between books, I had forgotten a lot. I hesitate to say more, because I fear I'll spoil it for you, but I will say there is more tragedy, lots of loose-end wrapping up, and yes, ultimately some peace is achieved.

"The City of Mirrors" is a great conclusion to The Passage trilogy. Although it would be good for the reader to have read the first two books prior to reading this final book, it is not necessary. The author, Justin Cronin, slowly catches the reader up with the characters from the "The Twelve." We also get the background of Zero, the protagonist who almost erased the human race. The new reader to the trilogy will not be be left in the dark about the backstory, but the reader familiar with it may want to go quickly through the first bit of the book to get on with the new story.

Cronin told a magnificent story with well developed characters that we care about as they meet their various fates. I recommend this book. Thank you to the publisher, author and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Cronin's writing, as always, is captivating, as is his storytelling. Perhaps too much time was spent on Zero's back story, but this third and final installment is a fitting end to the series.

It’s been many years since readers got the first bloody taste of the terrifying vampires in Justin Cronin’s The Passage. Since that time the second volume of the trilogy, The Twelve, came out with a lesser bang than the first. And now the final volume, The City of Mirrors, is finally here much to everyone’s hope and excitement, and it does not disappoint.

After some setup chapters, the story jumps ahead where Peter is approaching middle age and has been president for some time. There has been no sign of the vampires in a long time and the decision is made to let people spread out and colonize and settle down in this new and very changed world. But Amy, the Girl from Nowhere, knows that there is one vampire still alive far in the East, the original vampire from the very beginning known as Zero. She knows he’s building an army and has plans. Then there is Michael who has been alone for a long time and has discovered an old giant tanker and a plan begins to hatch, one that will take him decades, but it may be the answer the dwindling numbers of the human race have been looking for.

The City of Mirrors pulls the story back to the exciting thrill ride of The Passage, after the somewhat annoying and disappointing diversion that was The Twelve, with some great ups and downs along the way. A satisfying ending for a trilogy of long books like this might be a tough thing to accomplish, but Cronin ends his epic series in a satisfying way that will leave readers happy.

I liked the conclusion of the trilogy. It was interesting to read about how the virus started. Patient Zero is a very complex character. I was surprised at his ability to love even after his transformation and how that love so defined him.