This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and memory and magic, makes the impossible all too real…
At least, that’s what the marketing language over on Amazon.com would like you to believe. Don’t believe the hype! Our narrator is 47, and he recalls his youth, 40 years earlier, when he was 7. I think this is where my problem with this novel starts. It reads like a 7 year-old is telling the story. It’s mostly “I went here and did this. I went there and did that. Oh, and I saw that over there.” There is a huge lack of detail, of descriptions, and the novel is very bereft of emotions as well. The only reason I finished this book is because it was a very simple, easy read, and I was hoping the end would justify the time I spent getting there. It didn’t.
This novel is part fantasy and part reality. The reader is left to choose whether to believe the fantasy part actually happened or to interpret it as a child’s coping mechanism for what happens in the reality parts of the story. In the end, I was left with a feeling of bewilderment, because I didn’t know what I was supposed to believe, and to be honest, the fantasy part of the novel was not that great. In my best attempt to avoid spoilers, the novel contains supernatural creatures (both good and bad), evil, ignorance, violence, and I guess, in the end, apathy. This was a book club selection, and we were very divided. A few really loved it and a few (like me) thought it was rubbish.
2 out of 5 stars.