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A review by mynameismarines
The Motherless Oven by Rob Davis
4.0
Even before writing a word here, I changed the rating from 3 to 4 stars, back and back again. It's difficult to rate this because it was entertaining and imaginative and well drawn and had some lines of just lovely writing, but at the end of the day, it doesn't make a lot of sense. BUT! It purposefully doesn't make a lot of sense. It really depends if that kind of thing is your jam.
I found myself going back of the book blurb for clarification as I read, flipping back a bit, just to remind myself what the premise was and making sure I hadn't missed anything. The entire way through the story, the world was really my focus because it's just so strange. It's a world where the parents are child-made machines and it rains knives and people know their death days. I read on waiting for the thing that made it all click and make sense, but SPOILER: it doesn't happen. There are missing pieces of the story and it stops this world from coming into focus. That is truly why you exit the story thinking, "what the hell did I just read?"
If you pluck the plot a little out of the world, things make a bit more sense. Scarper is just a "normal" dude with a great dad and school friends who just happens to be dying soon, as his graduation approaches. He teams up with some weird kids at school and together they set off an adventure to find Scaper's dad. The questions that they ask throughout their journey are also not answered, but they are more easily swallowed. These are the philosophical questions of The Motherless Oven, about whether we make or are made. About what it means to be alive and if being alive and living are the same. These kids run from the relative safety of their reality, all the while time is on their tail. Time shows up in the form of some police in cars that literally tick-tock.
The end was a gut punch. [spoiler] We're told nothing is on the other side. Nothing is beyond death, perhaps, or maybe that you can't escape the system you are in, the circular history and such. Scarier stands on fence so close and then gets knocked out just before he jumps. And then the book ends with the blackness that was promised and that's all. [/spoiler]
You won't understand a portion of this book. But it's oddly entrancing and attractive. If you go into it with the mentality, "this will be weird," or if you like weird things, this is definitely that. It's something that would be fun to read with others, or even multiple times to see if there is more you can pick out and project meaning onto. I mean, just while writing this I remembered the lions keeping the kids in school and the general message of parents kind of wearing into the ground, or of losing identity once their children are gone. On and on it goes.
I found myself going back of the book blurb for clarification as I read, flipping back a bit, just to remind myself what the premise was and making sure I hadn't missed anything. The entire way through the story, the world was really my focus because it's just so strange. It's a world where the parents are child-made machines and it rains knives and people know their death days. I read on waiting for the thing that made it all click and make sense, but SPOILER: it doesn't happen. There are missing pieces of the story and it stops this world from coming into focus. That is truly why you exit the story thinking, "what the hell did I just read?"
If you pluck the plot a little out of the world, things make a bit more sense. Scarper is just a "normal" dude with a great dad and school friends who just happens to be dying soon, as his graduation approaches. He teams up with some weird kids at school and together they set off an adventure to find Scaper's dad. The questions that they ask throughout their journey are also not answered, but they are more easily swallowed. These are the philosophical questions of The Motherless Oven, about whether we make or are made. About what it means to be alive and if being alive and living are the same. These kids run from the relative safety of their reality, all the while time is on their tail. Time shows up in the form of some police in cars that literally tick-tock.
The end was a gut punch. [spoiler] We're told nothing is on the other side. Nothing is beyond death, perhaps, or maybe that you can't escape the system you are in, the circular history and such. Scarier stands on fence so close and then gets knocked out just before he jumps. And then the book ends with the blackness that was promised and that's all. [/spoiler]
You won't understand a portion of this book. But it's oddly entrancing and attractive. If you go into it with the mentality, "this will be weird," or if you like weird things, this is definitely that. It's something that would be fun to read with others, or even multiple times to see if there is more you can pick out and project meaning onto. I mean, just while writing this I remembered the lions keeping the kids in school and the general message of parents kind of wearing into the ground, or of losing identity once their children are gone. On and on it goes.