The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Ah, yes. Another Neil Gaiman book that fucks me up in an entirely welcome way by the end of it. I am left with a strange sort of pleasant emptiness that is the signature Neil Gaiman post-epilogue feeling.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a wonderful stand-alone, genre-defying novel. I would call it an adult book and a children's book; literary fiction and genre fiction; horror and fantasy and slice-of-life. It is a book about a seven-year-old boy who gets mixed up in a bunch of otherwordly things, including a housekeeper from hell, the most terrifying soul-sucking vultures I've ever read about, and an odd but heartwarming magical family, but it is full of shatteringly astute insights on childhood, adulthood, and magic and meaning in our lives. Mr. Gaiman continues to baffle me with how it is possible for a person to write so simply and so compellingly at the same time, and continues to be one of my greatest writing role models.

The only reason that this book doesn't get five stars is because there is a lot of ambiguity surrounding aforementioned magical family. I still have no idea what the heck is going on with them. I know that this is intentional, but as someone who likes to get mentally involved with the smallest details of speculative fiction, that was as frustrating to me as it seemed to be to the book's narrator.

If you're looking for a book that will break your heart and stick with you and remind you to stop worrying so much about being a grown-up, The Ocean at the End of the Lane does not disappoint. Even if you're not looking for any of those things, pick it up.