The Walk is about one man's journey through the destroyed city of LA.

Marty is a tv network executive and not very likeable to boot. The book opens with him cowering underneath his car as the BIG ONE rips through the city. Once the main quake is over, Marty decides he needs to walk home to get to his wife. This story is about that walk.

I don't want to get any further into the plot, but I will say that this book reads like a TV show or miniseries. It is very easy to picture in your mind as the author describes what Marty is experiencing. The main character does develop and grow throughout the story, but in a predictable way. In my opinion, the ending was rather easy to guess, but welcome nonetheless.

At the very end of the Kindle edition there were links to a group of books regarding Inspector Monk from the tv show. Apparently Mr. Goldberg writes these as well. He also has written for the show Diagnosis Murder. Perhaps this explains the author's ability to write so vividly? In any case, this was a good, fun read..but it's not going to blow your mind or change your view of the world. ( )

Holy crap, this book was awful. I kept reading it expecting to to live up to some of the great reviews it was given, but it never happened. The whole thing read like some sort of eighth grader's creative writing final paper. It had one-dimensional characters, an all-too-obvious ""plot twist"" and far too many instances of the writer simply telling the reader something (ie: the damage was catastrophic) rather than showing the reader something. Toss in a number of typos and grammatical errors and it was a total dud. ( )

Very engaging. Nice mix of drama and humor. A very good anti-hero who grows into a hero. Unfortunately the book jumped the shark (or jumped the tiger) at the end. Even though parts of it were fantastic, it was overall somewhat realistic in feel until the end, at which point it just became too far-fetched for me. ( )

The Walk - Lee Goldberg ****

Marty is a TV executive that finds himself as a survivor following a massive earthquake in LA. Concerned about his wife's safety he decides to attempt the walk home through all the devastation. We find Marty an extremely self centered individual, the type of high flyer that thinks mostly of his own skin. With this mindset he starts his journey determined not to be distracted by the sick and dieing. Along the way he bumps into Buck...

Buck is the total opposite of Marty. A macho man who is not afraid to risk his life in order to help others. Together they make an odd team, but become more dependent on each other as the miles are eaten up.

Throughout the book we are exposed to more and more of Marty's life and the events that led up to him having a successful career and his relationship with his struggling actress wife. We are able to find out what has made Marty the man he is today and also see how the disaster changes him once again as he discovers wealth and materials are not all there is to a successful life.

I found this book a bit of a strange one. The first 175 pages or so were brilliantly written, often making me laugh out loud (there are some brilliant touches of humour) or bite my nails with anxiety as the duo find themselves in another dangerous scrape. I had two problems with this book that meant I couldn't bring myself to give it 5 stars. The first being the continuous dropping of place names. Occasionally it felt as if I was looking through a street atlas as we are 'treated' to nearly every street and place name that Marty comes across. I don't know if this was because I am not from the USA and unfamiliar with the locations? My other issue with the book was the extremely poor and predictable ending. In the book Marty has been struggling throughout his life to write a novel, always becoming stuck around the 138 pages, I think Lee Goldberg had the same issue with this novel. I just felt very let down at the end and guessed what was going to happen way before it should have become apparent.

All in all a very good book and my first by the author. I would recommend it to others but would advise them to not get their hopes up for a satisfying ending. ( )

Good premise and at times, the story was expertly told, but overall, only average (Goldberg's satirical novels - like My Gun Has Bullets - are better).

The twist at the end was rubbish - real Dallas "the whole season was as a dream" stuff - and at times the character endlessly explained every thought running through his brain, which ultimately slowed the plot.

At times this was a fun read (and at other times it was gut-wrenching), but overall, it missed the mark (well, my mark).
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