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A review by kathoulhu
Light Beneath Ferns by Anne Spollen
2.0
I'm about halfway through Light Beneath Ferns, which follows the story of Elizah, who has just moved with her mother to a new town in the hopes of starting a new life. All the adults around Elizah seem convinced that she must be traumatized in some way due to the dissappearance of her father, after he was charged with theft due to his gambling problem. But Elizah is convinced that she's just fine. She doesn't want to form bonds with her classmates, and is surly with her mother (but in an unbelievably sweet way) and the guidance councilor she's sent to for weekly chats. But when she meets Nathaniel under a bridge while they're both canoeing, she finds someone she can open up to.
Many parts of this story are beautiful and vivid, and Elizah herself is an intriguing protagonist, but other areas are less compelling. The prose stumbles and feels stilted in places. The colloquialisms don't ring true, and in places, the narrator seems too old for a young 15. Although it's a slight book, the pacing in some areas was very slow, and sometimes a thrilling plot point, like Nathaniel taking Elizah to his home, were so difficult to follow that the reader is left wondering what the big deal is.
I'm not sure it succeeds as a ghost story -- many of the people Elizah must interact with are definitely creepy... but those are the living. The dead seem mostly sweet and sad... nothing to be afraid of.
Excellent descriptive prose segments -- like when we are treated to beautiful descriptions of bird bones and the jewelry Eliza makes of them, and her drawings of the jawbone -- are sadly too few and far between.
Many parts of this story are beautiful and vivid, and Elizah herself is an intriguing protagonist, but other areas are less compelling. The prose stumbles and feels stilted in places. The colloquialisms don't ring true, and in places, the narrator seems too old for a young 15. Although it's a slight book, the pacing in some areas was very slow, and sometimes a thrilling plot point, like Nathaniel taking Elizah to his home, were so difficult to follow that the reader is left wondering what the big deal is.
I'm not sure it succeeds as a ghost story -- many of the people Elizah must interact with are definitely creepy... but those are the living. The dead seem mostly sweet and sad... nothing to be afraid of.
Excellent descriptive prose segments -- like when we are treated to beautiful descriptions of bird bones and the jewelry Eliza makes of them, and her drawings of the jawbone -- are sadly too few and far between.