AUTHOR: Neil Gaiman
STARTED: July 12, 2013
FINISHED: July 29, 2013
PAGES: 192
GENRE: Young Adult
FIRST SENTENCE: I wore a black suit and a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes, all polished and shiny: clothes that normally would make me feel uncomfortable, as if I were in a stolen uniform, or pretending to be an adult.
SUMMARY: [From Amazon] In Gaiman’s first novel for adults since Anansi Boys (2005), the never-named fiftyish narrator is back in his childhood homeland, rural Sussex, England, where he’s just delivered the eulogy at a funeral. With “an hour or so to kill” afterward, he drives about—aimlessly, he thinks—until he’s at the crucible of his consciousness: a farmhouse with a duck pond. There, when he was seven, lived the Hempstocks, a crone, a housewife, and an 11-year-old girl, who said they were grandmother, mother, and daughter. Now, he finds the crone and, eventually, the housewife—the same ones, unchanged—while the girl is still gone, just as she was at the end of the childhood adventure he recalls in a reverie that lasts all afternoon. He remembers how he became the vector for a malign force attempting to invade and waste our world. The three Hempstocks are guardians, from time almost immemorial, situated to block such forces and, should that fail, fight them. Gaiman mines mythological typology—the three-fold goddess, the water of life (the pond, actually an ocean)—and his own childhood milieu to build the cosmology and the theater of a story he tells more gracefully than any he’s told since Stardust (1999). And don’t worry about that “for adults” designation: it’s a matter of tone. This lovely yarn is good for anyone who can read it.
THOUGHTS: Gaiman does it again. He always manages to tell charming, timeless tales no matter how dark the subject matter might be. The plot of this book is book is straightforward - a young lad tries to save his family and neighborhood from a dark and evil force. Cue the intrigue!
What I loved most about this book was how Gaiman captured the essence of childhood. Children are curious and often don't question what they don't fully understand - they just go with the flow and accept things as they are. This need to explore and experience the world absolutely shines in this book.
As with all of Gaiman's works, the writing is superb and well paced. If you like Gaiman, you'll like this.
RATING: 7/10 [Very Good]
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