Saturday, the twelfth of October

This was incredible. I don't just mean incredible as in extremely well done, which it mostly is, but that it continued to shock me, draw me in, thrash me around, and throw me out again. The book mingled with my own dreams, and the fact that I read it whilst sick and in isolation made it all the more riveting and relatable.

For me, this was not a feel-good book, nor did it have a particularly “happy” ending. It made me angry, but this was because I cared so deeply for Zan, for Burrum, Lishum, Sonte, for everyone. I felt a little played, too, because this book has been lying around for as long as I can remember – I believe my mother read it back in the 70's – and the cover had sparked my own ideas about what the book was about. Reading the back cover, for some reason my brain concluded that the two naked children were faeires. Thus, I expected a child-friendly, fantastical story in which Zan discovered a magical world that she could easily go back and forth from. If I had gone on Goodreads and read the summary, I would have seen it was something else! But I am glad that I had the wrong idea; it left me completely unprepared for the visceral, terrifying, harrowing, wondrous, and joyful physical and emotional experiences inside.

Something that does bothers me, though, is that Zan did not speak the language of the People when she returned. If she began speaking their language, perhaps people might listen to her story a little more? Of course, they might think she was in even more need of help, but the book didn't even mention the language once Zan returned home.