Book Review-The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaimon

I have a mixed experience with Neil Gaiman's work. Not because he isn’t a brilliant story teller, because he is. It’s more a content thing for me. Not all of his writing that I have read resonates with me. I can say the same thing for Neal Stephenson. Perhaps that is just how I relate to authors named some variant of Neal…

Either way this was one of his books that I enjoyed.

I didn’t highlight a ton, but I did find myself reflecting on life, and memory, and childhood’s big and little traumas. Something I suspect that most readers will be prone to with a book that includes lines like,

‘“Oh, monsters are scared,” said Lettie. “That’s why they’re monsters. And as for grown-ups . . .” She stopped talking, rubbed her freckled nose with a finger. Then, “I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”’

Or,

‘I said, “Will she be the same?” The old woman guffawed, as if I had said the funniest thing in the universe. “Nothing’s ever the same,” she said. “Be it a second later or a hundred years. It’s always churning and roiling. And people change as much as oceans.”’

It’s a very enjoyable book, that makes you think hard about life as you roll along.

Make sure as you read it that you remember, “You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.”

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