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silverstalk 's review for:
The Changeling
by Victor LaValle
4.5. I’m going with the Goodreads 5, because there are some unjustified low ratings. I think some were put off by the shift in tone about 60% in. It’s kind of a brilliant ploy. We get well-attuned to Apollo’s inner dialogue, including all his insecurities about fatherhood and his desperation to be the parent his own dad wasn’t. It reads like straight literary fiction. Then abruptly we’re catapulted into a wickedly macabre fairy tale. It really worked for me. The sleepy first half feeds into the trauma of the second. That’s the best kind of horror to me. The kind that takes the time to lay its protagonists open so the reader connects with their shortcomings.
Some of the prose is awkward. It reminded me a little of Paul Tremblay, whose language reads as very self-aware. Both writers are such good storytellers that I can look past it. There are also a number of odd plot points that go unexplained, but I think that doesn’t hurt a story like this. I never had any idea where it was going. It kept me chomping at the bit all the way to the end. Such a fun read.
Some of the prose is awkward. It reminded me a little of Paul Tremblay, whose language reads as very self-aware. Both writers are such good storytellers that I can look past it. There are also a number of odd plot points that go unexplained, but I think that doesn’t hurt a story like this. I never had any idea where it was going. It kept me chomping at the bit all the way to the end. Such a fun read.