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Book Reviews of The Door to December

The Door to December
The Door to December
Author: Dean Koontz
ISBN-13: 9780451181374
ISBN-10: 0451181379
Publication Date: 10/1/1994
Pages: 510
Rating:
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 367

3.8 stars, based on 367 ratings
Publisher: Signet Book
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

92 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed The Door to December on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
Another suspenseful thriller by Dean Koontz. Couldn't put it down until I finished it.
reviewed The Door to December on + 3 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
One of Koontz's older books, it's about pediatric psychiatrist who's trying to figure out what has left her 9 year old daughter so traumatized. It's a bit long, but it will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last chapter.
reviewed The Door to December on + 118 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
Little Melanie had been kidnapped when she was only three. She was nine when she was found wandering the L. A. streets,with blank eyes. What had become of her in all those years of darkness and what was the terrible secret, clutching at her soul. that she dared not even whisper??
reviewed The Door to December on + 5 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
If you are a dean Koontz lover,this is one of his best.A young girl has seen things so terrible,she forgets everything.Until it's time to remember.
reviewed The Door to December on + 45 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
Little Melanie was three years old when she was kidnapped. She wasninw when she was found the L.A. streets with blank eyes.
Chlorene avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 34 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
This is an awsome book. This was one of the best books of his that I have read in a long time. Just hated finishing it, it was just that good.
reviewed The Door to December on + 10 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
love Dean Koontz another all nighter couldnt put down
reviewed The Door to December on + 8 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Very good thriller, Koontz can sure write a great book!!
shajorah avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Great book. Recommend it to all Dean Koontz fans.
reviewed The Door to December on + 44 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Little Melanie had been kidnapped when she was only three. She was nine when she was found wandering the L.A. streets, with blank eyes. What had become of her in all those years of darkness...and what was the terrible secret, clutching at her soul, that she dared not even whisper?

Her loving mother and the police desperately hunted for the answer. They needed Melanie to help get to the bottom of the most savage scene of carnage the city had ever seen. And they would do anything to save her from whatever dreadful force or thing had invaded her young life. But first they would have to save themselves from a rising tide of terror...and from an icy evil howling through...
reviewed The Door to December on + 42 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Dean Koontz is a great writer your always on your toes with what will happen next.
Cyndilou avatar reviewed The Door to December on
Helpful Score: 2
Early Koontz, a little wierd, but what doyou expect?
SciFiFan avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 69 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Many of Koontz's books are about ominous things 'out there' and the power of love and family to overcome evil. This book looks at evil as power hungry men with a need to control everything that results in a whopper of 'what comes around goes around'!

I remembered little about the plot of this book although what I did recall was how terrific it was. I recently re-read this and my memory did not lie.

The main character is Dan Haldane, a homicide detective, who lives and breathes his work. When he gets called to a terrible murder scene, he meets a little 9 year old girl who has been through terrible experimentation and abuse at the hands of her father (who abducted her at the age of 3)and some other very nasty men. He also falls for her beautiful mother, a Psychiastrist, who can't believe that she has her little girl back.

More terrible murders occur and during his investigation our hero realizes that he is dealing with a psychogeist. The catharsis comes when he realizes the way to stop the killing and races to make that happen.

Excellent book. I enjoyed it tremendously and hope you do, too!!
reviewed The Door to December on + 129 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Another good suspense/horror novel by Dean Koontz. It was a little slow starting for me, but once I read the first couple of chapters, I could hardly put it down. A young girl is kidnapped from her mother by her father, then shows up walking down the street years later--and her dad was using her for weird and scary experiments. Interesting book if you like Dean Koontz! I loved it!
reviewed The Door to December on + 68 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
When I first started to read it, I thought, where is this going, what is going on, then it all came together and i'm here to say that those that got destroyed, deserved it.
It's a great book if you like the twist and turns that this author is so wonderful at acheving. HE is my favorite author.
reviewed The Door to December on
Helpful Score: 1
This was such a good book!! Dean Koontz really does it again.
reviewed The Door to December on + 17 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This book had it all for me: mystery, action, and the occult just to make it more interesting. I recommend it.
reviewed The Door to December on + 10 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This book was wonderful. The 1st book I read by Dean Koontz. Great thriller. Couldnt put the book down.
rinablaze avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 3 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Melanie is kidnapped at 3 by her sadistic father who brainwashes her for 6 yrs. He and some colleges needed a subject to test their theories about astral projecting. This one has a bit of everything. One of my favorite Koontz books, could not put it down.
Nightcrawler avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 207 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Great!!! One of my favorite Koontz books!
waterbearer avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 62 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is one of the better Koontz stories. Unbelievable horror involving a child and her nutty, yet GENIUS, father. Gets you to thinking, for sure, and terrifies you.
reviewed The Door to December on + 22 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
As a recent inductee into the Koontz fan base, I didn't know what to expect with this book. It was amazing. I couldn't put it down and finished it in 2 days while in bed with pneumonia.
ditter avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 16 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Finding your daughter after she had been missing for years, should be a joyous occasion. But now you have to keep her safe from some unknown force that is killing everyone connected with her kidnapping and the experiments she was used in.
reviewed The Door to December on + 22 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I love this book! Great suspense and horror type things
reviewed The Door to December on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Kidnapped girl returns home different; supernatural mystery with sympathetic characters
icesk8tr avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 363 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Nine year old Melanie was kidnapped by her own father at the age of three. For several years her father kept her locked in the basement, undergoing scientific experiments to aid his research. This involved being forced to sit in an electric chair to learn to block out pain and left for hours at a time in a sensory deprivation tank, and denied the chance to leave the basement or have any contact with the outside world. After her father and his friends are brutally murdered, Melanie is found wandering the streets naked and deeply catatonic, terrified of what she calls "The Door To December". It also seems that somebody is after the girl. Now it's up to Melanie's mother, a policeman named Dan and a hired bodyguard named Earl to protect the autistic, troubled girl, discover who's behind the murders, who's after Melanie, and learn the truth about the mysterious "Door To December" that the girl is terrified of.
reviewed The Door to December on
Helpful Score: 1
This is one of my very favorite Dean Koontz books. I've read it several times.
reviewed The Door to December on + 13 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
The usual dose of excitement and bizarre fantasy
reviewed The Door to December on + 3 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A thriller with the usual twist in the beginning, middle, and end.
reviewed The Door to December on + 159 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Published pseudonymously in 1985, Koontz has revised this thriller portraying a pediatric psychiatrist's attempts to unravel the mental trauma suffered by her estranged nine-year-old daughter. One of Koontz's best-loved novels of psychological suspense, The Door to December takes readers into the darkest recesses of the human mind-and into the tempest of a father's obsession.
reviewed The Door to December on + 683 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Little Nelanie had been kidnapped when she was only three. She was nine when was found wandering the L.A. streets with blank eyes. What had become of her in all those yrars of darkness... and what was the terrible secret clutchting at her soul that she dare not even whisper.
reviewed The Door to December on + 459 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The #1 New York Times bestselling author delivers a truly suspenseful novel of a mother who must save her daughter from a threat she can hardly understand. What happened to nine-year-old Melanie during the six years she was subjected to terrifying experiments? And what is the unstoppable power that she can unleash from behind the "Door to December"?
reviewed The Door to December on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Dean Koontz is a marvel in imagination!
TwoDogs avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 11 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Classic Koontz!
reviewed The Door to December on + 19 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I loved this book. Its one of my favorites.
reviewed The Door to December on + 7 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
An exciteing cat and mouse chase that is grounded in a more than usually believable contxt.Koontz skillfully intercuts scenes that comment on each other and build ever more tension...touching on such issues as child abuse,governmental protection of criminals,and the gray moral areas of human expereimentation.
dipc avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 20 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Creepy mystery will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end!
Lazeeladee avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 87 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Another excellent book by Koontz!!
romeo avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 334 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
GREAT!!! One of my favorite Koontz books!
cozynblue avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 36 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
"An exciting cat-and-mouse chase that is grounded in a more than usually believable context. Touching on such issues as child abuse, governmental protection of criminals, and the gray moral areas of human experimentation. He keeps his appealing characters moving at a breakneck pace toward revelations from which they shrink."
heather73 avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 16 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is one of my absolute favorite books and the only book that has made me cry!
reviewed The Door to December on + 2 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Awesome book! The beginning was a bit slow but it got better.
reviewed The Door to December on + 15 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This is the first book by Koontz I ever read, hes the best!!!!
reviewed The Door to December on + 27 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Another great Koontz read.
reviewed The Door to December on + 8 more book reviews
I loved this book! It's so great right down to the last page!
reviewed The Door to December on + 32 more book reviews
very scary..two nights sleep lost finishing it up.
reviewed The Door to December on + 8 more book reviews
Another great one by Koontz.
reviewed The Door to December on + 3 more book reviews
Thriller
reviewed The Door to December on + 63 more book reviews
A creepy read as doen by Dean Koontz himself!
reviewed The Door to December on + 220 more book reviews
Koontz is a master of prose when it comes to character building- from the warmest to the most despicable. And yet when you finish one of his books, you're always left with a feeling of hope- for this crazy human race. This book contains a six-page new afterword from the author.
reviewed The Door to December on + 39 more book reviews
Very good! Keeps you guessing.
reviewed The Door to December on + 59 more book reviews
Published pseudonymously in 1985, Koontz has revised this thriller portraying a pediatric psychiatrist's attempts to unravel the mental trauma suffered by her estranged nine-year-old daughter.
reviewed The Door to December on + 14 more book reviews
Daughter is kidnapped and used as an experiment for five years. They give up hope in finding her, but it turns out she has only been a few blocks away at a warehouse undergoing experiments............
Love the plot and enjoyed the ending.
reviewed The Door to December on + 36 more book reviews
Excellent book.... probably one of my favorites from Koontz. It's intense, it hooks you from early on, and make you so curious you just can't put it down. Highly recommend.
marydebrock avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 3 more book reviews
Excellent! Found it hard to put down-even at the end!!!
reviewed The Door to December on + 2 more book reviews
I loved this book. I thought it was one of his best. It was a real page turner.
reviewed The Door to December on + 48 more book reviews
Little Melanie had been kidnapped when she was only three. She was nine when she was found wandering the L.A. streets, with blank eyes. What had become of her in all those years of darkness...and what was the terrible secret, clutching at her soul, that she dared not even whisper?

Her loving mother and the police desparately hunted for the answer. They needed Melanie to help get to the bottom of the most savage scene of carnage the city had ever seen. And they would do anything to save her from whatever dreadful force or thing had invaded her young life. But first they would have to save themselves from a rising tide of terror and from an icy evil howling through the Door to December.
reviewed The Door to December on + 8 more book reviews
This book is about a little girl who was kidnapped and knows about a dreadful act of carnage caused by the "icy evil that comes through the door way to december".

I love koontz's style. He is able to keep you turning the pages with his riveting plot developements and don't forget his twist at the end.
reviewed The Door to December on + 3 more book reviews
This another brilliant work by Koontz!
Suzyne avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 14 more book reviews
I read this one in high school.. I couldn't put it down
Granites2001 avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 88 more book reviews
This is one of my favorite Koontz Thrillers
reviewed The Door to December on + 10 more book reviews
This book is a really quick read! It's about a little girl who's father is a scientist. The girl's Mother and Father are divorced. The Father kidnaps their daughter and does all sorts of scientific tests on the poor child. Unfortunately, her mother doesn't know where her daughter is nor does she know about the testing her ex-husband has been performing.
One day, the Father is murdered and the Mother is finally reunited with her long-lost daughter. Unfortunaltely, its to late.Due to her father's scientific testing, the girl has become something-like, in my opinion, a "walking zombi".

This story is about the Mother and daughter reuniting and how they develop a relationship together. The book shares the story of the Mother's ups and downs in trying to help her daughter escape the "zombi-like" transe and her struggle in trying to reverse the psychological damage that the daughter has endured because of the Father's scientific testing.

It's a very, very good book! I couldn't put it down!
reviewed The Door to December on + 17 more book reviews
I enjoyed this book. Sometimes I became really angry at how Melanie was treated, even though I KNOW it's fiction. It was very realistically written. Child abuse, child abduction, human experimentation, all skillfully handled.
reviewed The Door to December on
From Publishers Weekly: "An exciting cat-and-mouse chase that is grounded in a more than usually believable context. (Koontz) skillfully intercuts scenes that comment on each other and build ever more tension .... touching on such issues as child abuse, governmental protection of criminals, and the gray moral areas of human experimentation. He keeps his appealing characters moving at a breakneck pace toward revelations from which they shrink."
maicie avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 4 more book reviews
Not one of my favorite Koontz books but it still delivered the steady fare I appreciate from the author. Probably would have enjoyed it more it I had read it in 1985, when it was first published.

New word learned: psychogeist.
reviewed The Door to December on
Melanie has been kidnapped. When she is found wandering the streets, she is not the same child as before she left. She has seen something beyond our world.
reviewed The Door to December on + 6 more book reviews
I had a hard time putting this one down. Very intense book. Typical Dean Koontz.
reviewed The Door to December on + 49 more book reviews
Another great Koontz story! Kept me on the edge of my seat!
bigshirl55 avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 197 more book reviews
Foo Koontz' fans a must read. Kept me guessing all the way.
mommytsunami avatar reviewed The Door to December on
Older version
reviewed The Door to December on + 49 more book reviews
well, this is probably not the review to get someone to request it.

not my favorite koontz, but absorbing at times. i was interested enough to finish it, so i guess it is an average book.

i objected to two things. one was due to total lack of research--koontz simply wasn't credible. the other was an appalling absence of common sense and common knowledge in police procedure.

next time, do the research, dean.
reviewed The Door to December on + 3 more book reviews
One of Koontz's best thrillers.
VJay avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 49 more book reviews
I had a hard time putting the one down!
liz13676 avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 6 more book reviews
A Great book loved reading it. A+++
reviewed The Door to December on + 204 more book reviews
I am a huge Koontz fan and I felt this was very good read.
stuckonbooks avatar reviewed The Door to December on
I have read several Dean Koontz books.I would say this is the best of all the great books he has written.Keeps you on edge throughout.
reviewed The Door to December on + 625 more book reviews
This newly repackaged Koontz classic--one of his best-loved novels of psychological suspense--features a new Afterword by Koontz that examines what this book means to him 25 years after he first wrote it.
stlpug avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 22 more book reviews
This is one of Mr Koontz earlier efforts, and it is pretty good but definitely not his best. I guessed the end about half way through or earlier, but was entertained with the details on the way to the end. 3 stars.
reviewed The Door to December on + 264 more book reviews
from amazon...

Nine year old Melanie was kidnapped by her own father at the age of three. For several years her father kept her locked in the basement, undergoing scientific experiments to aid his research. Melanie is found wandering the streets naked and deeply catatonic, terrified of what she calls "The Door To December". Now it's up to Melanie's mother, a policeman named Dan, and a hired bodyguard named Earl to protect the autistic, troubled girl, discover who's after Melanie, and learn the truth about the mysterious "Door To December" that the girl is terrified of.
reviewed The Door to December on + 579 more book reviews
little melanie had been kidnapped when she was 3, now she is nine and found wandering the streets of l.a. with blank eyes,what had become of her?in all those years of darkness? read and find out i read this years ago and was good then and the same for now, it is good reading
reviewed The Door to December on + 54 more book reviews
Creepy! Great Koontz book.
reviewed The Door to December on + 25 more book reviews
this is another typical Dean Koontz thriller. Very bizarre!
reviewed The Door to December on + 55 more book reviews
One of Koontz's finest books!
Rowan avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 44 more book reviews
Dean delivers yet again.
Marcia avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 378 more book reviews
This is a Koontz thriller. Will keep you awake.
reviewed The Door to December on + 10 more book reviews
This Book was a very good read and made me jump several time. Not so good for getting to sleep easily though.
reviewed The Door to December on + 224 more book reviews
This book is an exciting cat-and-mouse chase that is grounded in a more than usually believable context. The author, Koontz, skillfully intercuts scenes that comment on each other and build ever more tension...touching on such issues as child abuse, governmental protection of criminals, and the gray moral areas of human experimentation. He keeps his appealing characters moving at a breakneck pace toward revelations from which they shrink.
Little Melanie had been kidnapped when she was only three. She was nine when she was found wandering the L.A. streets with blank eyes. What had become of her in all those years of darkness..and what was the terrible secret, clutching at her soul, that she dared not even whisper?
Her loving mother and the police desparately hunted for the answer. They needed Melanie to help get to the bottom of the most savage scene of carnage the city had ever seen. And they would do anything to save her from whatever dreadful force or thing had invaded her young life. But first they would have to save themselves from a rising tide of terror...and from an icy evil howling through.... the door to December.
reviewed The Door to December on
This book was very intense. Dean Koontz does it again. I read it in 4 days.
StealthBunny avatar reviewed The Door to December on + 32 more book reviews
Typical Dean Koontz horror. Light, but exciting reading!
reviewed The Door to December on + 32 more book reviews
good shape
reviewed The Door to December on + 10 more book reviews
Again I can't say too much about this, it was for a friend who has it already.
reviewed The Door to December on + 136 more book reviews
Haven't read this. Registered with bookcrossing.com.