The Ocean at the End of the Lane is two things: it’s a fantasy story about a seven year old boy who encounters some terrible, unbelievable things, as well as some wonderful, unbelievable things. It’s also a neat little ode to childhood and commentary on growing up. The unnamed narrator returns to his childhood home, which isn’t even there any longer, to attend a funeral, and finds himself taking a diversionary trip to the farm at the end of the lane. He vaguely remembers there […]
The Hannibal of books
The Devourers is one of those books where I liked it so much that I don’t even know what to say about it. I read it in one sitting, ensconced in a fever dream, and because it was so intense and then over so quickly I had such a hangover afterward, wanting more. It’s like the Hannibal of books: fellow fans of the (too-short) TV show will understand when I say that it has that same quality of being breathtaking and captivating, literally beautiful, but […]
More Scalzi sarcasm, in teenage girl form
In my micro review for The Last Colony, the third and previous book in this series, I noted that the third book was the last in the series, considered in a traditional fashion. That’s because Zoe’s Tale is an alternate POV re-telling of The Last Colony, and the books that follow are also a little different in their structure, but I’ll get to that in those reviews. Alternate POV novelizations aren’t unheard of, but they’re tricky to pull off and are often viewed by more […]
“I used to be someone.”
Dramatic irony — simply, the idea that the audience knows something that the character doesn’t — is a common tension-building storytelling device. From the point of view of the audience, it’s oppositional from the “plot twist,” where the character(s) and the audience are both in the dark and they figure out the crucial, shocking bit of information at the same time, and it completely transforms the story, both moving forward and retroactively. There are the stories that play both sides. They don’t explicitly inform the […]