Title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3 out of 5
Why Did I Read? We chose it for book club in June.
Summary: Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what. (From Goodreads.com--which was nice because I'm not sure how I would start to summarize this!)
What Did I Love:
- It is a quick read--though it does take a minute to get going
- Analyzing the symbols
What Did I Hate: A bit boring and strange. I started with a 2 rating because it was really just okay...but I came to like it a bit more when discussing it with the book club. It has a lot of symbolism and enjoyment that comes from analyzing it. I probably won't read it again, but if you like Neil Gaiman I highly recommend it.
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