Warning, I listened to this one via audiobook, and it may have tainted my perception of the book in its entirety. I typically enjoy Neil Gaiman, so I went into this book prepared to really enjoy it, which also might color my view. Do not misunderstand, I didn’t hate this book, I just found it disappointing.
The book starts when the protagonist (whose name we never learn as this is a first person situation) returns home for a funeral and visits the house where he grew up. The protagonist is remote, detached, and doesn’t seem to have much to live for. At his childhood home he begins remembering some startling incidents of his youth that he’d completely forgotten, specifically his relationship with Lettie Hemstock, a girl who lives down the lane and has an ‘ocean’ in her back yard. Lettie’s family is odd in the supernatural way, which becomes clear later in the book… for now, the narrator drifts into the memories of a child as a child. We see a picture of a family that the narrator assumes is happy and normal, but the reader can tell that his parent’s marriage is not in a good way. One of the issues of contention is that they must take on a boarder for extra money. This throws the children into conflict by changing the sleeping arrangements. Later this boarder commits suicide in the narrator’s father’s car. This bizarre event seems to open some sort of portal to a supernatural world and invites in a malevolent being that lodges in the narrator’s foot as a worm. The narrator visits the Hemstock women who help remove the worm.
Later the mysterious Ursula Monkton comes to stay with the family. She has an uncanny ability to please all the members of the family, minus the narrator. He knows immediately that she is the worm pulled from his foot, he also knows that she intends bad things for him and his family. This is perhaps the most difficult portion of the book for me. Ursula is abusive. She encourages the narrator’s father to take part in that abuse. The whole time I am thinking… this is a kid’s book… supposedly. This isn’t exactly the type of thing that I’d want to read to my kids, with my kids, or have them read it on their own. Not that every YA or middle grade book should be all sunshine and roses, but their should be SOME sort of reason… some sort of moral for all that is happening. The resolution of this book did nothing for me that answered questions or made me feel like the true evil of the Ursula character was justified.
Again, the narrator turns to the Hemstock family to help rid him of the offending evil, I won’t spoil the ending in case you want to read it, but it doesn’t quite go as planned. The largest issue I had with this book, is that it seemed like a short story that Gaiman decided to lengthen into a book. There just wasn’t enough material there which for Gaiman is odd. One thing I’ve always enjoyed in his writing is the tightness of it all. His other books seem to hit everything needed without a lot of unnecessary fluff. The Ocean at the End of the Lane didn’t keep in that style at all. Also, let us speak a bit about the narration. This book was narrated by Neil Gaiman. On the one hand, all the information that you get is presented through the author’s interpretation. The nuance, the tone, etc. Unfortunately, Gaiman’s voice is SO BORING to listen to. It isn’t dynamic. It drones on. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that I just couldn’t get into this via the audiobook format. So my suggestion is, if you have interest, read it. Do not listen to the audiobook.
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