I’m not going to lie, I made sure to time the completion of this so I could use that title. Neil Gaiman is one of the best world builders in business and The Ocean at the End of the Lane is no exception. Why did I wait so long to introduce Gaiman into my life? I needed an audiobook reset after sloughing through Dearie and this was perfect. A charming story read by the charming author himself. At the beginning of the novel our unnamed […]
Right In the Feels, Every Time
This book destroys me every time. Everything about it so so achingly beautiful and also so vividly terrifying. It’s a thin and unassuming little book that turns on you about 3 pages in and I love it. Gaiman perfectly captures the reminiscing of childhood and the actual child perspective in the same story as our narrator remembers a terrible event that happens when he’s seven. But Gaiman makes a remarkable craft choice in that he writes most of the narrative from the seven year-old’s point […]
Voyage to the Heart of Childhood*
Another vacation read and one that reminded me of why I like Neil Gaiman so much. I came into this novel without knowing much about it and since I read it on my kindle, I didn’t even have a back cover summary to prepare me for what unfolds. I think that made this short but beautifully written story all the more powerful. The novel starts out with an unnamed narrator, returning to his childhood home in England, to attend a funeral. He has some time […]
Whatever weird things you remember about childhood, probably not as weird as this…
In the words of the great John Cleese, “and now, for something completely different…” I don’t know what I was expecting from this book, but it wasn’t that. And yet, it’s probably spot on for Gaiman. So what do I know? I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to say because in reading the back of the book synopsis and other reviews, I just didn’t realize that this story was so out there. Whoever was tasked with writing that synopsis stuck on his best poker […]
Another Winner from Neil Gaiman
I will admit that I simply like Neil Gaiman. I’ve read a few of his books, and if I see one I haven’t read yet in my local used book store, I will almost always buy it, knowing that I will enjoy the reading. Most people I know either *!!!LOVE!!!* Gaiman or they don’t like him at all, so I guess I am one of the rare few that sits firmly in the middle. That being said, I quite enjoyed The Ocean at the End of […]
Is Anything As It Seems?
My first venture into the fiction of Neil Gaiman, and I was not disappointed. In this tale of the fantastical, we are reminded that nothing–be it people, monsters, or oceans–are what they seem to be. Read the full review here.