The Ocean at the End of the Lane







This was my first time reading a Neil Gaiman book. I think I'm missing out on something important!!
I really enjoyed this book and the way it was written. It catches your interest right from the beginning and continues to drag you in further and further. This is why I love to read books. I love when a book is so good that you have to finish it right away. I have a really bad habit of doing this, and it ends up with me spending fifteen dollars on a three-hundred page book that I finish that same day!

The book starts out with a Man who has remembered his past while attending a funeral of one of his loved ones. He leaves abruptly in a daze while thinking of his past and the things that occurred to him as a kid. Soon he ends up arriving at the place where he grew up when he was younger. He ends up walking to the end of the lane, which is where he was told there was an ocean.

The area where the whole story unfolds is completely different from many magic realism and contemporary fantasy books of the ones today. I say this because in Gaiman's story, the setting is somewhere rural and away from civilization. In most of the recent books in this genre the settings take place within the cities. I like this change because it makes you wonder why the author chose such a setting. Sometimes the setting is the key to how the entire book will turn out. I like this approach when story telling!

This book reminds me of a book that I have read in the past. The book was called The City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare. It reminds me of this book because it is almost the complete opposite of Gaiman's. It is a similar genre, but the settings, characters, and story line kind of shadow that of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. The city of bones tells about a girl from New York, who is suddenly thrown into a world of demons and "The Fallen". The fallen are known as the Shadow Hunters. They are the ones who destroy the demons throughout the world. However, not everyone can see them. Those who share the blood of shadow hunters are the only ones who can see and be seen by them. I really enjoy books that make me second guess myself throughout the story. There have been many times that I would start reading a book and then easily guess the ending and be correct. In Gaiman's I had to start second guessing from the very beginning! When this happens I start to get deeply interested in the plot and what would come next. I believe this book hit many points that I look for when reading. I couldn't stop reading it.