Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Goodnight that was an incredible ride! Victor LaValle knows how to write a captivating horror story. I had to wait weeks for this one to become available at the library and not only is the long wait justified it’s also worth it.
I really don’t have an interest in leaving an expository review of the story, so do read the description, but hotdog this is a good one!
I really don’t have an interest in leaving an expository review of the story, so do read the description, but hotdog this is a good one!
I wasted 10 bucks for the Kindle copy. The first few chapters were really good but it went downhill fast after that. I disliked every single character and the plot, though fantastical, which I usually love, was just disjointed and full of empty plot points. It's hard to like a book with such unlikeable characters.
Wow! LaValle crafted an incredibly haunting novel. It was great to go into it without knowing anything.
Overall, I loved the book and the way a fairy tale was set in modern New York City, with both heroes and villains having access to the latest technology. I am giving four stars instead of five because there were some loose ends that really should have been cleaned up. Not the "magical" parts (I'm fine with those), but the events of the book and the actions of the characters are going to have some very serious real-world consequences. I won't say more to avoid spoilers, but I think an epilogue would have been useful to clear things up.
I'm glad I read this now, when my daughter is 6, instead of when she was a baby!
I will look for some more of LaValle's works.
I'm glad I read this now, when my daughter is 6, instead of when she was a baby!
I will look for some more of LaValle's works.
Can I get a medal for finishing this? Can I? I'll even settle for a gold star sticker.
This book was the perfect example of a good writer without an idea. It was slow, it was boring, and the overall story left me thinking, what did I just read?
The genre The Changeling is labeled as is magical realism but there wasn't an inkling of 'magic' until ~300 pages in (this book is only 431 pages long). By then I was so bored that nothing could have interested me.
Synopsis: Apollo Kagwa was raised by a single mother after his father walked out. As an adult, he often finds himself thinking of his dad but is determined to not be the kind of father he had. Mere months after his wife (Emma) gives birth to their son (Brian), her mood changes and she kills Brian before disappearing. Needless to say, Apollo is beside himself with grief and after a short stint in jail, he goes searching for Emma. During his search he meets a man named William Wheeler who offers to help find Emma.
But this is the point in the story where things get weird...
William and Apollo believe Emma is hiding out on an island off the coast of NY that is inhabited by women. They go there and Apollo meets Cal, the leader of the island, who tells him to visit Brian's grave. He does and unearths Baby Brian's coffin only to find a bundle of tightly woven yarn that has been glamoured to look like his son. He then finds Emma in the forest. She's some kind of witch now (but not really). William's father tells Apollo of a giant troll that likes to try to take care of children but because it's a bad parent, it just eats them instead. Apollo kills Will's Dad and together with Emma, they burn William's house down (with the dad dead inside). They find William and he tells them that their son is alive after all and with the troll. They kill him too. Apollo and Emma then go to the cave where the troll lives, find their son and kill the troll. They live happily ever after.
Double-U. Tee. Eff. This is a terrible plot. This whole book lacks a good-even decent-idea. Since there wasn't a hint of magic in the first part of the book, the second half felt like the second part of an entirely different book.
But like I said, LaValle is a good writer and every now and then we are given some really good bits of writing:
The world is full of glamour, especially when it obscures the suffering of the weak.
To believe in only the practical, the rational, the realistic was a kind of glamour as well. But he couldn't enjoy the illusion of order anymore. Monsters aren't real until you meet one.
Every human being is a series of stories; it’s nice when someone wants to hear a new one.
History isn't a tale told once, it's a series of revisions.
When you have to save the one you love, you will become someone else, something else. You will transform. The only real magic is the things we’ll do for the ones we love.
This book was the perfect example of a good writer without an idea. It was slow, it was boring, and the overall story left me thinking, what did I just read?
The genre The Changeling is labeled as is magical realism but there wasn't an inkling of 'magic' until ~300 pages in (this book is only 431 pages long). By then I was so bored that nothing could have interested me.
Synopsis: Apollo Kagwa was raised by a single mother after his father walked out. As an adult, he often finds himself thinking of his dad but is determined to not be the kind of father he had. Mere months after his wife (Emma) gives birth to their son (Brian), her mood changes and she kills Brian before disappearing. Needless to say, Apollo is beside himself with grief and after a short stint in jail, he goes searching for Emma. During his search he meets a man named William Wheeler who offers to help find Emma.
But this is the point in the story where things get weird...
William and Apollo believe Emma is hiding out on an island off the coast of NY that is inhabited by women. They go there and Apollo meets Cal, the leader of the island, who tells him to visit Brian's grave. He does and unearths Baby Brian's coffin only to find a bundle of tightly woven yarn that has been glamoured to look like his son. He then finds Emma in the forest. She's some kind of witch now (but not really). William's father tells Apollo of a giant troll that likes to try to take care of children but because it's a bad parent, it just eats them instead. Apollo kills Will's Dad and together with Emma, they burn William's house down (with the dad dead inside). They find William and he tells them that their son is alive after all and with the troll. They kill him too. Apollo and Emma then go to the cave where the troll lives, find their son and kill the troll. They live happily ever after.
Double-U. Tee. Eff. This is a terrible plot. This whole book lacks a good-even decent-idea. Since there wasn't a hint of magic in the first part of the book, the second half felt like the second part of an entirely different book.
But like I said, LaValle is a good writer and every now and then we are given some really good bits of writing:
The world is full of glamour, especially when it obscures the suffering of the weak.
To believe in only the practical, the rational, the realistic was a kind of glamour as well. But he couldn't enjoy the illusion of order anymore. Monsters aren't real until you meet one.
Every human being is a series of stories; it’s nice when someone wants to hear a new one.
History isn't a tale told once, it's a series of revisions.
When you have to save the one you love, you will become someone else, something else. You will transform. The only real magic is the things we’ll do for the ones we love.
The Changeling WRECKED me! It's not often that I'm emotionally and physically affected by a book, but this one did both, and how! I am at a loss to adequately describe just how beautiful/compelling/gut-wrenching this book is. Just incredible! The Changeling isn't just one of the best books I've read this year, but one of the best books I've read. Victor LaValle is a treasure.
I would relate this book to taking a scenic stroll. It takes a while for you to get to the point of the book but it's so we'll written that you don't really mind. I do wish it had gotten to the real meat of the story sooner OR that once you got to the meat, it wasn't so short-lived. It took about 70% of the book to really get to something exciting and horror-related and then it felt like that piece was so short compared to everything else. But because the writing was so good and kept me fully engaged, I'm giving this a solid four stars.
I can't decide whether I like this author or not. On the one hand the stories leave me feeling anxious, so that says something about his ability to draw you in. On the other hand it feels like there are inconsistencies with time and space that can be distracting and disorienting.
4.5
This is another departure from my normal genres but despite the slow roll of the story, once I got into it, it was hard to put down. This is my 2nd read by LaValle and I’m hooked.
This is another departure from my normal genres but despite the slow roll of the story, once I got into it, it was hard to put down. This is my 2nd read by LaValle and I’m hooked.