This was a story unlike many others I have read. It seemed
to be based around a alternative world to this one. Nothing to out of the
ordinary for the most part, except for the Vorrh. The endless forest that is believe
to house the garden of Eden at its centre. The book had elements of greatness.
A really unique point of view, but I felt sometimes just lacked something that
would make me not want to put down. Instead I spent most of the book being
carried along whilst think about what I may read afterwards.
The story was initially quite hard to follow. The jump in
characters seemed clumsy and at times I was not sure who was who at all. Only a
couple of characters really stood out. Ishmael was the character I most looked
forward to returning to and I feel that’s where the real interesting story was
based.
Other characters like Mutter, Sidras and Edward Muggeridge and
even Tsungali, to some extent, began to bleed into each other and until one of
them spoke to someone else or someone spoke to them I didn’t really know which character
the story had turned to.
Most of the characters seemed credible if lacking a bit of
depth. Other than Ishmael and Gertrude I didn’t really feel attached to any of
the characters. I didn’t really care what happened to them. And for me that
makes a book drag. I have had a bit of a reading slump, and whilst this isn’t the
worst book I have ever read by far, I feel like I should have liked it more.
I didn’t really feel like any of the story was relatable,
but I also don’t believe it was meant to.
I didn’t hate the book. But it is unlikely to be one I recommend
or re read at any point. There are 2 more books that follow this one and
honestly at this point I am unlikely to read those as this felt like much too
much hard work. When you work full time and have a small child reading needs to
be easy and gratifying. Which this book on the whole, was not.
