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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Too much of this opening section has been spent on the couple being pregnant and home births. I just, don’t like babies and don’t really care about pregnancy
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Didn’t wanna stop reading it
The way this story transforms is shocking but it’s done well in the sense that it doesn’t fully take you out of “our reality”. The audiobook is also fantastically narrated by the author.
I’d be interested in checking out the rest of the author’s work.
The way this story transforms is shocking but it’s done well in the sense that it doesn’t fully take you out of “our reality”. The audiobook is also fantastically narrated by the author.
I’d be interested in checking out the rest of the author’s work.
First appeared here: http://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2018/01/the-changeling-review-genre-defying.html
There are novels that defy easy categorization...and then there's The Changeling, by Victor Lavalle. This novel is nuts, in the best possible way. It's basically a modern fairy tale about how our parents either mess us up or send us out adequately prepared to deal with the world. That's a massive oversimplification for this massively entertaining novel, but it's the gist.
It starts mundanely enough — with a boy meets girl story. Apollo Kagwa, New Yorker, meets, falls in love with, and marries, a librarian named Emma. Soon, they have a child — delivered on a subway train during a power outage (a near-mythological birth!)— they name Brian, after Apollo's father. This is odd, though, because Apollo's father abandoned he and his mother when Apollo was four. But he left behind a children's picture book he used to read to Apollo depicting a fairy tale where a child is stolen by a goblin. This is foreshadowing at its finest.
Emma and Apollo begin having marital problems which culminate in....boy, you just have to read this to find out what happens. Suffice it to say, their baby disappears, and Apollo spends the rest of the novel — an odyssey through New York City, to a mysterious island inhabited by women and finally to the only forest in New York City, a park in Queens — trying to find his child and his wife.
This novel is so cleverly written, incorporating tropes from myths (I mean, dude's name is Apollo, for one), to fairy tales (bread crumbs, evil parents, etc.), to even Biblical themes (which of course, depending on your own beliefs, may actually just be myth as well). But this is novel thoroughly modern — there's bits here cautioning about privacy issues with social media, specifically, and the potential dangers of technology, generally. These parts are a nice juxtaposition with Apollo's profession of used book dealer. Indeed, it's through his job — selling a first-edition, signed To Kill A Mockingbird — that he meets the mysterious William, who becomes a major part of what happens.
As things get weirder and Apollo is less and less sure about everything he thought he knew about reality, the novel gets increasingly violent as well. Apollo is sort of tested to the lengths of his own humanity. What will he be willing to do to save his child?
I loved this book - it's really unlike anything I've ever read. It didn't garner too much attention when it was published last June, but it's showed up on several "Underrated Books of the Year" lists, including this one from Bookstr. If you want to read something wholly unique, check out this terrific book!
There are novels that defy easy categorization...and then there's The Changeling, by Victor Lavalle. This novel is nuts, in the best possible way. It's basically a modern fairy tale about how our parents either mess us up or send us out adequately prepared to deal with the world. That's a massive oversimplification for this massively entertaining novel, but it's the gist.
It starts mundanely enough — with a boy meets girl story. Apollo Kagwa, New Yorker, meets, falls in love with, and marries, a librarian named Emma. Soon, they have a child — delivered on a subway train during a power outage (a near-mythological birth!)— they name Brian, after Apollo's father. This is odd, though, because Apollo's father abandoned he and his mother when Apollo was four. But he left behind a children's picture book he used to read to Apollo depicting a fairy tale where a child is stolen by a goblin. This is foreshadowing at its finest.
Emma and Apollo begin having marital problems which culminate in....boy, you just have to read this to find out what happens. Suffice it to say, their baby disappears, and Apollo spends the rest of the novel — an odyssey through New York City, to a mysterious island inhabited by women and finally to the only forest in New York City, a park in Queens — trying to find his child and his wife.
This novel is so cleverly written, incorporating tropes from myths (I mean, dude's name is Apollo, for one), to fairy tales (bread crumbs, evil parents, etc.), to even Biblical themes (which of course, depending on your own beliefs, may actually just be myth as well). But this is novel thoroughly modern — there's bits here cautioning about privacy issues with social media, specifically, and the potential dangers of technology, generally. These parts are a nice juxtaposition with Apollo's profession of used book dealer. Indeed, it's through his job — selling a first-edition, signed To Kill A Mockingbird — that he meets the mysterious William, who becomes a major part of what happens.
As things get weirder and Apollo is less and less sure about everything he thought he knew about reality, the novel gets increasingly violent as well. Apollo is sort of tested to the lengths of his own humanity. What will he be willing to do to save his child?
I loved this book - it's really unlike anything I've ever read. It didn't garner too much attention when it was published last June, but it's showed up on several "Underrated Books of the Year" lists, including this one from Bookstr. If you want to read something wholly unique, check out this terrific book!
So much to like in this one. Only issue is the magic crutch, when things refused to add up, the answer was suddenly, OH, MAGIC. Otherwise, fantastic. Enthralling and suspenseful, funny sometimes too.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
A tiptoe dance between 'is it a monster" or "is it psychosis" that is answered that question firmly. The role of the woman is reduced to archetypes: wife/ mother/ witch. That bugged me. But it was good.
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5 stars
That was really intriguing and unlike everything I've ever read before, but overall I only mildly enjoyed it. I personally wanted more dark/fantastical elements especially earlier on in the book and I'm not sure it needed to be as long as it was, maybe even a 100-200 page novella would have sufficed. I thought some of the characters actions didn't make much sense and though the themes and commentary of parenthood, technology, race, etc were all really important, they weren't really blended in the narrative as well enough, some of it felt shoehorned in. A fascinating read with wonderful writing that ended up being pretty okay.
That was really intriguing and unlike everything I've ever read before, but overall I only mildly enjoyed it. I personally wanted more dark/fantastical elements especially earlier on in the book and I'm not sure it needed to be as long as it was, maybe even a 100-200 page novella would have sufficed. I thought some of the characters actions didn't make much sense and though the themes and commentary of parenthood, technology, race, etc were all really important, they weren't really blended in the narrative as well enough, some of it felt shoehorned in. A fascinating read with wonderful writing that ended up being pretty okay.