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Oct 20, 2017RoyalJellyIII rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Darnielle's first novel is a bit of a challenge. Not to read, necessarily, but to fully appreciate. His prose flows smoothly and his writing is evocative and beautiful and this novel is full of quiet, perfect scenes (my favorite being a moment with the main character hanging out with a couple of teens outside a liquor store). But at the same time we are thrust into the dark, twisting labyrinth of our disfigured hero's mind, and it is a terrifying place to be. We leap from past to present, from reality to fantasy, from kindness to anger. We see so much, but in the end do we really know our hero? Does he know himself?