[REVIEW] The Ocean At The End Of The Lane,Neil Gaiman

(Buy it HERE.)

This book is like a collaboration between Stephen King and Roald Dahl after a brief consultation with C.S. Lewis and H.P. Lovecraft. It’s weird and whimsical and dark and otherworldly and veddy, veddy British. It should be awesome but it’s mostly just…okay.

It took me a long time to get into this short tale of British farmhouse faerie and an abrupt end to childhood. The first quarter of the book is so rambling and aimlessly melancholic that by the time things really began happening, I felt unprepared. This is unlike anything Gaiman has ever written, and in that way is a bit disappointing for me as a long-time fan. I can’t help but think that if this is a reader’s introduction to him, they’d be disappointed by his other work.

It’s not a bad book, though. The ending is one of the more emotionally interesting ones I’ve come across lately, the story has a classic fairy tale grace and triumph, and it’s descriptively lush. It’s not particularly compelling either–as stated before, it takes too long to get going and the characters are all a bit too familiar–precocious children, mean adults and a lot of one-dimensional not-quite-women. It’s worth borrowing but not buying.

4 stars and a Prozac prescription to The Ocean At The End of the Lane.

(However, if you insist on buying it, please consider doing so HERE via Bookshop.org, supporting both indie booksellers and this blog. I am an affiliate of Bookshop and will earn a commission if you click on any of the links in this blog to make a purchase. Thanks! )

Becoming Him by Landa Mabenge

(Buy it HERE.)

“I have spent most of my life adrift in hollow silos, a bee whirling around in an empty can.”

Landa Mabenge is a very interesting person. He grew up in an abusive home and struggled through alcoholism, poor mental health, and bad relationships as a young adult in addition to struggling to find support through coming out and getting gender affirmation treatment. Now, he’s an activist and advocate for transgender health issues and adult recovery from abuse. He describes this journey with such a clear desire for personal purpose that readers can’t help but be in his corner from the first page, even through some very dark experiences.

Despite the title, Becoming Him is not really a memoir about being trans. It is the memoir of a trans man–a small distinction but an important one, I feel. Mabenge himself says that the gender affirmation process was only one part of his life–an important part, but not his entire life. There’s a lot more to Landa than just his gender and he makes it clear that he’s very much a normal man living an extraordinary life. While there are abnormal and dysfunctional things in his story, being transgender isn’t one of them. He writes with himself as default, a powerful thing for a “diverse” writer to do, and very effective. Ultimately, the memoir is about recovery, affirmation, and moving continually upward through life towards one’s personal purpose. I personally found it very relatable and inspiring.

Relatable as I found this, it’s the first book by a Black South African writer I’ve ever read, and only the second book I’ve read about a transgender man.(The first was Parrotfish, if you’re curious.) I know that there were plenty of references to transgender experience and South African culture in the text that I missed completely. As it was, I looked up a lot of things while reading. I didn’t mind it since that’s part of why I read. I did mind the TedTalk tone of some parts of the book, and the Jedi hand waving over what seems to be an abusive streak in Mabenge’s own personality as well.

This review was originally written in 2019–imagine my surprise when I discovered that Mabenge has, in fact, given a TedTalk–and its quite good!

4 stars to Becoming Him. Buy it here from Bookshop.

(I am an affiliate of Bookshop and earn a commission if you click the links on this page and make a purchase. Thanks in advance.)