A review by firebreathingmermaid
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin

mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I had mixed feelings about this book. I got all the way through it despite feeling the urge to quit a few times, but it was intruiging enough to make me want to keep reading just to find out what was going on. I thought the core concept was really interesting, and the main themes were good, too, but the execution had it's issues. I have some complaints that are more personal taste related, which I try not to focus on, but I also have complaints that I think are valid criticisms broadly. I'll go through each.

Person complaints (pretty much spoiler free):
  • I found the writing style irksome. I think a lot of people would probably enjoy it, but for me it veers into pretentious, pseudo-intellectual drivel that draws things out way more than they need to be drawn out. The main character's inner reflections and voice are almost insufferable to me, and they do not read like how a human thinks at all. I also was very confused by the choice of shifting POVs. I thought the reveal was going to provide some explanation as to why Proctor's POV was first person past tense but every one else would occassionally get third person present tense, but it never really felt clear to me how or why these shifts would occur.
  • I think the book was too long and slow-paced. To be honest, for the amount of time i spent reading, not a whole lot happened. It could have definitely been pruned to be more concise and the pacing, in my opinion, would have worked better. Kind of in line with the first complaint, there were far too many moments when the narrative (especially Proctor's POV but also in the other POVs) just rambled far too long about something that, I think, the author felt was deep and reflective but it often just made me roll my eyes.  I'm aactually suprirsed this book is mostly considered as "medium pace" from other StoryGraph reviewers as it felt slow to me.
  • The epilogue was completely unneccessary and boring. It made me even more mad at Proctor, and added literally nothing to the story IMO. I could have figured that was what his dream was going to be. It should have ended with Thea (though also the pregnancy trope is tired tbh).

Broader complaints (spoilers included but in tags):
  • The characters. There was not a single character in this book I found likable. I don't mind an unlikable cast or protagonist, but I just wasn't even rooting for them at all. I felt no sympathy for them whatsoever even when they were doing wrong things. Especially Proctor.
    he is a chronic cheater. He was constantly super moody and his actions and thoughts rapidly bounced all over the place between pleasant and kind to combatitive and rude to overly emotional rumination. I could not give you a single trait I feel was consistent in him other than being overly wordy, both in his dialogue and in his inner monologue. Additionally, he doomed thousands of people to be servant slaves for hundreds of years, and then his "repentence" for this was giving himself a literal dream life forever? that made no sense and it did NOT sit right with me.
  • Other character issues that mostly came toward the end so spoilers:
    Why the hell did Thea insist on being thrown back into the dream only to have her legs immediately broken and contribute nothing LMAO. Warren was even more random than Proctor in whether or not he wanted to be evil or nice. I couldn't even keep track of half the other characters and nobody really had anything to make them stand out or make the reader interested, invested, or rooting for them.

  • The pacing, again. I think this time I will say that it's not just about how it was slow for my opinion but how it seemed to change pace.  It started so, so slow, and I felt like I was stuck in very boring mundane aspects of the world just wondering for ages what was going on. The actual revelatons don't happen until like 80% through the book. 
  • Again, thematically, the book was good and interesting, but the author BEATS YOU OVER THE HEAD with nonstop monologuing about things I think, to some extent, the reader should be able to pick up themselves. At times some of these lines were really great, but he tried so hard so many times that even when I happened upon a good, reflective, inspiring quote, I was already tired of the way he constantly tried to make them happen.

I think there were a few other things, but this is all I can remember currenltly. I may come back to this. Again, I really enjoyed some elements of this. I think if you gave me a summary/synopsis of the book and its themes I'd think it sounds incredible, but the execution left a lot to be desired, for me, and a lot of the time I was just tired of reading it and wanting desperately to get through it just to know what happens. Once I was halfway through, I sort of just felt like I had to finish to find out since I had already invested the time, so I guess that's a positive. I WANTED to know what was going to happen, I just didn't enjoy the characters or narrative along the way.
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