The Three A Novel

Sarah Lotz — 2014

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...

Reviews

Christine Bruce@brucethegirl

Sep 26, 2022

I just loved this book. It's been a while since a novel has so enraptured me. I finished it in a day and that doesn't even happen with my trashy romance novels. The style- written like a nonfiction collection of articles and interviews about an earth changing day and the events that unfold in the following months. Up until about half way I still found myself kind of doubting if there was something supernatural about the kids. But then the last chapters reduce all doubt about that question. Even if a hundred other questions remain. The motifs and messages are much more subtle than expected in modern sci fi. I keep seeing people say it's anti American and anti religious but that's bologna. It's anti blind faith and anti media spin. It's anti this current atmosphere in the western world to get swept into sensationalism and forget basic decency. A great horror novel that really gets under your skin in all the best ways.

Nickie Mohler@hazelreads1

Nov 18, 2021

This book was ok for me, but it was just too weird and boring. At first it was really interesting. Four plane crashes, three survivors. I really wanted to know what happened to them. I kept reading, becoming less and less interested. Then the ending just sucked. I'm amazed at the rave reviews it has gotten. It was not for me.