The Servants

This was a great and engaging little read, a modern day ghost story and coming of age story wrapped together. The ghost story is used as a metaphor for what is happening in the boy's life (at least that is how I took it) and I found it to be beautifully done. My only complaint is that I wish the novel had been a bit longer allowing for some of the characters to be a bit more fleshed out.

Not bad, not bad. Not as good as some of his short stories I've read. Perhaps, for me, told a bit too much from the main character's p.o.v. Mark read a little too much like angsty Harry Potter in ‘The Order of the Phoenix. It gets a trifle tedious and annoying. But it's a bit interesting, how the ghostly servants actually fit into his life. I goofily spent part of the book trying to figure out exactly how butlers and housekeepers and maids fit into the story of Mark and his stepfather and cancer-ridden mother. I perhaps should have figured it out earlier, but–ah, well. Sometimes, that just doesn't happen. That gave the novel a nice, interesting twist.

Still, I felt like Mr Smith was somehow limiting himself in this one. There were paragraphs that were good writing, lovely. And then the narrative would go back to being childish and awkward. I don't think writing from a child's p.o.v. should necessarily be that awkward. But, maybe if I were eleven and reading this I'd feel differently.