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daffodildyke's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
I listened to the audiobook of this whilst also reading the ebook to ensure I could appreciate the illustrations as i feel like they are such an integral part of the story at its heart.
I love the way this story is told, I love that this is told through multiple perspectives for a logical and important reason - the fact Orla and Omid have to fill in the gaps of Kai’s story, of Kai’s memory adds a really significant energy to this book. It is sometimes disjointed and jolts you out of parts of the story, but this makes it feel very authentic to me. To understand the feeling of parts of your life only being able to be told by others is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone in lots of ways, but it also shows that there were people who cared at those times, they cared enough to pay attention to fill in the gaps for you!
I think the fact Zac doesn’t have a perspective and fill in the gaps for Kai is really interesting and important, it illustrates that even though they were close and Zac was present in this time, Kai doesn’t necessarily trust him to fill in those gaps, he wasn’t involved enough.
The foreshadowing of Kai’s dad, the unreliability of Kai as narrator, the presence of the ravens and the symbolism that runs through this story speaks to a very specific part of my brain that doesn’t feel spoken to often. I didn’t have as troubled a childhood as Kai, but i know that my white privilege was really the only thing that stopped so many of these things being true - parents with mental health problems and spiralling into your own dark abyss is all too familiar to me.
The depiction of grief on multiple levels (the loss of a child, the grief for the relationship with his father, the melancholic memory of childhood, the old man who started and ended the tale of the Bothy etc) is illustrated in both words and images so deftly that it makes me feel so warm amidst these dark moments.
This story feels very real to me, all i wish is that we HAD had some more input from Kai in that time he was away - and that the ending had been more fleshed out because i wanted to know more about Kai and his future.
I would recommend this book, but particularly if you are an audiobook person - the way this story is told in the audiobook really does the words justice and feels like Kai, Orla and Omid are telling you this story.
I love the way this story is told, I love that this is told through multiple perspectives for a logical and important reason - the fact Orla and Omid have to fill in the gaps of Kai’s story, of Kai’s memory adds a really significant energy to this book. It is sometimes disjointed and jolts you out of parts of the story, but this makes it feel very authentic to me. To understand the feeling of parts of your life only being able to be told by others is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone in lots of ways, but it also shows that there were people who cared at those times, they cared enough to pay attention to fill in the gaps for you!
I think the fact Zac doesn’t have a perspective and fill in the gaps for Kai is really interesting and important, it illustrates that even though they were close and Zac was present in this time, Kai doesn’t necessarily trust him to fill in those gaps, he wasn’t involved enough.
The foreshadowing of Kai’s dad, the unreliability of Kai as narrator, the presence of the ravens and the symbolism that runs through this story speaks to a very specific part of my brain that doesn’t feel spoken to often. I didn’t have as troubled a childhood as Kai, but i know that my white privilege was really the only thing that stopped so many of these things being true - parents with mental health problems and spiralling into your own dark abyss is all too familiar to me.
The depiction of grief on multiple levels (the loss of a child, the grief for the relationship with his father, the melancholic memory of childhood, the old man who started and ended the tale of the Bothy etc) is illustrated in both words and images so deftly that it makes me feel so warm amidst these dark moments.
This story feels very real to me, all i wish is that we HAD had some more input from Kai in that time he was away - and that the ending had been more fleshed out because i wanted to know more about Kai and his future.
I would recommend this book, but particularly if you are an audiobook person - the way this story is told in the audiobook really does the words justice and feels like Kai, Orla and Omid are telling you this story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Grief
Moderate: Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, and Racism
Minor: Dementia, Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, and Pregnancy
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