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expecting great furies Shortly before noon today I finished reading A Trip to the Stars. Earlier I had said that I was worried about how the book might end, but now that I've reached the end I can say that there was no need to worry. By the time that I finishing reading the final line of the book I was happy for the characters and if a book can make me care about fictional people then I feel as though I read something that was worthwhile. Not only did I care about the characters, but the book also made me think which is another quality that I appreciate from a good novel. In my opinion the book lived up to the praise given to it from various Amazon reviewers and The New Yorker ad that first made me aware of the book. The book not only combines a number of genres, but reminded me of authors as varied as Dickens and Gaiman. I could see elements of both of them in a book with a boy being lifted into a new life and a woman on a quest for a lost child. It was as though Great Expectations had been merged with The Furies arc from The Sandman, both of which I love dearly. Magic realism is the term used the most often when people talk about the book and once again I would have to agree. I doubt that most people live lives as interesting as Enzo and Mala did, but they were still real enough not to lose my interest and to me that is the beauty of fiction. |