Customer Rating: 
Summary: I finished it -- barely
Comment: The first thing that struck me about the book was the writing style. I kept looking at the copyright date, because the language was so arcane. It made it seem like a bad nineteenth century gothic novel. The flowery, Victorian references to sexual situations were especially laughable for a book written in the mid-1990's. (One character, wondering if a woman was a lesbian, referred to it as "non-platonic love for another woman".)Assuming you get past the way it is written you will find the characters one dimensional and stereotypical. There isn't any depth to any of them and because of that you won't care if they survive the earthquake or not.
That's also my final complaint about the book. The earthquake is really not the central event in the book. If you are looking for a disaster/adventure book, you will be very disappointed. The earthquake happens near the end and then it is over. In the case of one character, there is an earthquake, they are trapped for 24-hours and then rescued. All in the space of a single page. How did they react to being trapped? What went through their mind while being trapped? I don't know. Apparently the author didn't think that was important.
My recommendation is to skip the book and just go rent Earthquake the movie.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Awful
Comment: Extremely confusing, the story flies all over the place with no obvious connection, and there are way to many characters to completely understand the book, even though I have an incredible, almost photographic memory, I could not keep all the characters straight!
