I found this book to be a difficult book to get into, and while it was okay, it is not a book that impressed enough to remember much about it. Relying heavily on contrivance and synchronicity to hold the story together, it was an interesting premise, poorly delivered. I think this is the kind of book you will either really enjoy, or have very little time for, depending onyour theosophical points of view. ( )

You have to accept this book as a work of fiction, with not too much incorporation of reality, not because it is past December 21st 2012 and the events at the end have yet to come to being, but because it's more enjoyable if you sit back and don't criticize. If you highlight every aspect of this book that is unbelievable or seems untrue, then you'll have a lot of yellow and no pleasure by the end. This book isn't about perfection, it's about being laid back, about doing what you feel is right in your heart and jumping in to something because you think it's the right thing to do and you have faith in it.

There were a lot of characters to meet in this book and there were a lot of times when, even in a laid back state of mind, you had to think, "yeah, right" because you knew whatever it was would never happen so easily in reality, but the story of someone meeting others, the hope involved, is worth pushing through all of that doubt and disbelief. The characters might not have had the most depth in them, the locations might not have been descriptive, but it's the journey that is important and that, I think, was written well. ( )

At fifteen Max has a near death experience where he sees the names of twelve people. He doesn't know them and as life goes on he forgets about them. As the years go by Max starts to meet the twelve until finally in the year 2012 it is discovered that they hold the key to whether or not the world continues on 12-21-12.

I enjoyed this book for what it was....fiction. I enjoyed how Max through chance meetings discovers the twelve. I think the ending could have been a bit more dramatic but all in all a good read. ( )

If a Jack Chick Bible tract and a Hallmark card had a baby, it would be this book.

The cover features a majestic view of a stone calendar above ancient ruins embellished with embossed lettering in a clear, easy to read font. Past that, the book goes downhill quickly.

The main character, Max, is a wunderkind with access to worldwide travel and horrible luck in women. He bounces from locale to locale, meeting several of the Twelve in rather rapid succession, experiences woeful bad luck, then meets the remainder of the Twelve. Along the way, Max's life mirrors a number of the author's life events (encapsulated at the inside back cover) and culminates in an epic event where "Nothing will change, and yet everything will change."

If you like life-affirming one dimensional characters, brief descriptions of foreign locales and improbable details like Max reading 1000+ issues of National Geographic magazine in 4 weeks time in 1973's Westport, CT (presumably from their library, founded 2 years before Nat Geo started) then this is the book for you. ( )

In William Gladstone's debut novel, he tackles the Mayan calendar and how the world is supposed to end on December 21, 2012. However, the novel begin long before then, when Max Doff is conceived in 1946, during some sort of cosmic alignment, described as "the most joyful mutual orgasm" their parents have ever experienced.

Max Doff, our protagonist, is clearly cut from a different cloth. Not only can he not speak until his sixth year, but he is portrayed as being the perfect human being. Not a perfectionist, but perfect. He has the body, and brawn, and the brain. He attracts money, people and beautiful women in such a way that most cult leaders would envy.Yet, he's despised by his older brother, who constantly, and from a young age, wants to kill him for no apparent reason.

At fifteen years of age, Max has a near-death experience where twelve names are revealed to him, and that he instantly forgets, save one. However, he is convinced that he must find these twelve people, and that his life now serves a higher purpose. As his life inches forward, events come to pass where he meets these people, one by one, almost by chance. But as the Mayan calendar comes to a close, he finally understands that he must bring those twelve people together at a specific time and location, in order for humankind to reach a higher level of understanding.

A sci-fi, race-against-the-clock type thriller The Twelve isn't. There is absolutely no sense of urgency in Doff's quest, no suspense whatsoever. He doesn't find these people, he meets them by chance. And he doesn't realize they're one of The Twelve until they reveal their names to him. And when they do, it suddenly clicks. And when he reveals his near-death experience to each of them, they not only think he's not completely insane, they wholeheartedly believe, trust, and follow him during his quest! You know, kind of like...a sect. A sect of twelve insane, or very naive, people.

Character development is virtually non-existent, and with all the supporting characters, there is none at all. They're all described at a superficial level, with no depth whatsoever. Even Max's brother, who supposedly plays a certain role in his life, is only portrayed as a mild annoyance instead of the major protagonist he should, and could have been.

Although this novel is laden with religious, mystic and new-agey innuendo, every single event leading up to the very predictable end was...predictable. There were positively no surprises, and events became simply redundant after the first few meetings. There are too many coincidences, he meets with too many influential people, be they spiritually or financially.

This novel reads as though it was fully made up of notes that were meant to be expanded on, and never were. Cohesion doesn't seem to be in Gladstone's vocabulary, and the literary style he uses is very amateurish.

Unless one can get past the many coincidences, a very foreseeable plot, thin characters, and painfully poor writing, there is no reason anyone should pick up this book.

1/5, only because it has pretty cover art. ( )