hpagano

A well-written book with some real moments of beauty. Grossman's depiction of the lost years between the end of high school and the ever-elusive start of "real life" was poetic, but hit too close to home on those painful years in my own life for me to honestly say I had fun reading reading the book. Grossman does a good job capturing the idea that having arrived, being finished, being done growing up, is always just out of reach, that there is no ta-da moment that ends our growing up process. Sometimes I read fantasy to pretend that there is an endpoint, a satisfying conclusion to our quest to become our full-fledged selves. Grossman didn't do that for me, and I felt a little let down that he didn't, but that doesn't mean he didn't write a good book. My main complaint with the story was pacing. It felt like some things happened to slowly and others happened too fast. I'm going to give Grossman the benefit of the doubt and posit that the awkward pacing was meant to depict the awkward starts and stops inherent in trying to reach a destination that never existed. The awkward pacing prevented me from feeling like I had gotten inside the narrative and really enjoyed the good parts. I'm certainly interested, if not exactly looking forward to, reading the next book in the series.