A review by farenmaddox
The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee

1.0

What I assumed was going to be a thought-provoking story laced with rich metaphor turned out to be dry and repetitive. I couldn't engage with any of the characters, and outright disliked the protagonist. Ugh. I fully understand that this was meant to be a kind of parable, but it felt uninspired. You have to be interested to find meaning in an allegory, and to get interested you have to enjoy the characters involved. The only part I really felt on a deeper level was the loss of mother and father that you cannot ever find again and can only try with little success to replace-- the story of every refugee in a strange land.