[Book] True Color of You - 'Brother Odd' by Dean Koontz
Here we have no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no active volcanoes, no killer bees.
We do have something more dangerous than all those things. We have people. (p. 24)
The main character Odd Thomas is a twenty-year-old fry cook. What is different from other people is that he can see dead people. He can also see a supernatural being called 'Bodach'. These Bodachs celebrate massacre and feast of death. - They don't do any harm to people, they just enjoy the fear death cause, and swarm to the place where the mass killing will soon follow. So if a Bodach is spotted, that means tens or hundreds of people will soon meet death.
After the two big events in his life, which were described in the former books "Odd Thomas" and "Forever Odd", Odd decided to live in an abbey for a while. Because he wanted to calm his mind and he desperately needed some time to reflect his life. He chose an Abbey located in the deep forest. There was an convent beside the abbey. The nuns were taking care of physically and/or mentally challenged children, all several dozens of them. Then one day, Odd spotted a Bodach in one of the children's room. One at first, then three. Soon seven.
What might it be? A tornado? A hurricane? He didn't know what might cause the disaster, but there were people, who might be more dangerous than any natural disaster.
Source: Goodreads
Was he able to stop the disaster and save people? This book is filled with fun, suspense, and thrill till the end. Plus, you can meet some insightful senteces from time to time. Like this:
“When you laugh at yourself, you gain perspective. Then you realize that the mistakes you made, as long as they didn’t hurt anyone but yourself – well, you can forgive yourself for those.” (p. 239)
Like I said in earlier postings, Odd himself is very attractive character. I don't mean his appearance. His personality is very unique and adorable at the same time.
But if Odd is someone you know in the real life, would I find him attractive and adorable? I doubt it. Eccentric, at best. Weirdo, probably. But then, what do I know about him to judge?
What does it take to know someone? In this book, a man said this to Odd:
“... After reading a twenty-page report on you, Mr. Thomas, I thought I knew everything about you, but as it turns out, I knew little of importance. By that, I do not mean only your... gift. I mean I did not know the kind of man you are.” (p. 298)
This man is an expert. Of what kind I must not say, because it might be a spoiler if you haven’t read this book yet. It’s suffice to say that he is an expert, and if a twenty-page report was written by his colleagues, it must be an accurate and precise one. So it’s natural to assume that he was sure he knew Mr. Thomas inside and out after reading that report. But as it turned out, he was wrong.
By that he didn’t mean Odd’s gift, that is, his ability to see ghosts and omens. He meant he didn’t know the kind of man he(Odd Thomas) was. That’s right. Even if you read a twenty-page report about someone, it still cannot show you his heart and mind.
So what makes us sure that we know other people very well? Forget the twenty-page report. We're ready to jump and judge other people even for a snippet of rumor over the watercooler.
What do we have to do to know someone? Because sometimes all the source we have about someone is an eager coworker waiting beside the watercooler. So, with that limited information, we must try not to be biased. We must try not to jump to conclusion. Because a person is too big of a universe to be crammed inside one or two pages. A person is like a prism that reflects different colors every time it moves. So how hard it must be to find the true color of someone.
This is a book review of Brother Odd by Dean Koontz, the third book in the Odd series. You can read my book review of the first one Odd Thomas here.
You can read my book review of the second one Forever Odd here.
[Book review] Power of Hesitation - 'Forever Odd' by Dean Koontz