Life Expectancy (2004) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 5 stars

“GREAT BOOK! One of my favorites by Koontz. Not so much a novel as it is an experience. Kinda corny to say, I know, but I highly recommend it to pretty much everyone.”

• Rated 3 stars

“3 STARS A great thriller.”

• Rated 5 stars

“This book was a pleasant surprise. I bought it at a thrift shop for $3.00 and really liked it. It is about a young man who has 5 future days in his life predicted by his grandfather to be bad ones. It begins with his being involved in a bombin where he meets his future wife. The story really evolves and includes people from the circus, a lot of history from his life and a cool ending. It was also full of dark humor and made me laugh at times because of the corny things some of the characters said. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“nice....”

• Rated 5 stars

“As usual, Koontz delivered. I love his little humorous quips almost as much I love it when he pens something profound. I can always count on adding a few new quotes to my quote journal when I'm reading Koontz. Life Expectancy is full of action, thrills and anticipation of what's about to happen throughout, nearly from the first page. Towards the end, there is one HUGE surprise, as far as I'm concerned. I, at least, never saw it coming. Perhaps I should have? Nah. You really come to like the characters, even feeling a little sorry for the bad guy......well, one of them. The entire family is quirky and I don't think any dinner at their house would be boring or even 'normal'. Jimmy Tock, the main character, is extremely likable and nearly from the beginning you really want things to turn out peachy for him. Lorrie? Well, not much gets by Lorrie, and she doesn't entertain much foolishness. She is a get it done kind of girl. Grandma Rowena is, well, she's simply a character!! Anyone who enjoys Koontz will like this one.


Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when , at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the first and last time since his stroke. What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson-five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year; the second in his twenty-third year; the thrid in his twenty-eighth; the fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth. Ruby is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he learns Josef also predicted the time of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height and weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly-the unexplained anomaly of fused digits-on his left foot. Suddenly the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance. ”

• Rated 5 stars

“Make fun of Dean Koontz all you want - I LOVED this book. And a lot of his others. So good! ”

• Rated 5 stars

“My second favorite of his books behind Out of the Corner of his Eye.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Jimmy was born the son of a baker and thus followed in his father's footsteps. The night he was born his grandfather died with an ominous warning of dates and death. That same night a clown went insane and killed people in the maternity ward. The first date his grandfather warned about is drawing near. Perhaps his grandfather's dire predictions were the mania of a dying man...but what if they're not? How does the mad clown tie into Jimmy's uncertain future? A wonderful, convoluted tale that can make you question many things we take for granted.”

• Rated 5 stars

“It was suspenseful and pretty funny. I usually don't read books of this genre, but I'll make an exception for Dean Koontz and read more of his books :)”