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A review by sgkelsey
Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng
3.0
This is a horror novel. I know that some will argue with this classification, but it is horrific in the same way that Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ is a journey into horror. The structures of the two texts are similar: a civilized person ventures into the unmapped landscape to discover someone who has gone ahead, someone irrevocably removed from civilization. The protagonist is a religious woman rather than a riverboat pilot, the landscape is Faerie rather than the Congo, but the seemingly dull journey is really a slow revelation of taboo gradually shifted until it is viewed from the other side.
If you are looking for a romance between a magic loving human and an iron allergic king of summer, this is not your book. This is not a feel-good Harlequin.
That said, if you loved the immersive voice of Clarke's Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norell, if you are not afraid of feeling lost and confused and following a candle through a dark hallway, if you like connecting the dots to reveal the giant teeth and gaping maw... this book is for you.
The story will disappoint readers who are expecting a Jane Eyre in Wonderland, but it may delight those with a genuine penchant for the truly, sublimely, horrifyingly gothic.
Ng is staying on my authors-to-watch list. I am curious to see what else may come from this mind.
If you are looking for a romance between a magic loving human and an iron allergic king of summer, this is not your book. This is not a feel-good Harlequin.
That said, if you loved the immersive voice of Clarke's Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norell, if you are not afraid of feeling lost and confused and following a candle through a dark hallway, if you like connecting the dots to reveal the giant teeth and gaping maw... this book is for you.
The story will disappoint readers who are expecting a Jane Eyre in Wonderland, but it may delight those with a genuine penchant for the truly, sublimely, horrifyingly gothic.
Ng is staying on my authors-to-watch list. I am curious to see what else may come from this mind.