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Darling readers, I’m delighted to share today’s book with you, and even more delighted to have some inklings as to why my beloved Kendra Adachi adores Neil Gaiman so ding dang much.  The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman is such a fun read, and so well executed!  I feel like the both / and of it all is hard to do, and congratulations to us at Heart.Wants.Books I think we’ve hit the jackpot of comfort reads this month!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is the story of a man returning to his past, on the occasion of a funeral.  As a result of this return, he finds himself remembering way back when he was a child, a series of tragic things that occurred (some of which are in the marketing copy).  When all hope feels lost, our protagonist meets Lettie, who lives in a farmhouse at the end of the lane.  Lettie lives with her mother and grandmother, and takes our protagonist under her wing, and then the real drama starts!  The short (marketing copy) story is that darkness in the form of magical realism is unleashed and Lettie protects our protagonist.  The experiences in that drama shape the protagonist, both during and after, and both with and through Lettie, he has some pretty fantastic epiphanies.  

On a related note, themes of The Ocean at the End of the Lane include the power of books and reading, and how child-like adults really are, or could be if they only admitted to it.  I found it both refreshing and uplifting.  My favorite quotes include:

“Adult stories never made sense, and they were so slow to start. They made me feel like there were secrets, Masonic, mythic secrets, to adulthood. Why didn’t adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and smugglers and dangerous fairies?”

• Narnia and stories about secret islands, smugglers, and dangerous faeries are some of my favorites, even as an adult.

“Growing up, I took so many cues from books. They taught me most of what I knew about what people did, about how to behave.”

• Cosigned, no notes

“I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”

• FACTS – although I do wish I had more wonder like I did way back when.  Perhaps that’s a muscle that needs some exercising.

I’m giving The Ocean at the End of the Lane four solid stars.  While I’m not likely to reread it, it has stayed with me, and definitely helped Gaiman’s catalog rise on my TBR list.  Overall, it is a hopeful, magical book that includes vibrant dialogue and lush descriptions.  What more could a person want in a novel?  

What’s a recent read that left you feeling hopeful?

~Nikki 

Neil Gaiman is a bestselling and award winning author who was born in Hampshire, United Kingdom, and currently lives outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Here at Heart.Wants.Books. Nikki and I have read and discussed with you, darling readers, American Gods during a Virtual Book Club Session. Plus, during our pre-blog buddy read years, we read Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman before we watched the Amazon TV series of the same name. (FYI, highly recommend reading the book before watching the series, of which I have only consumed season 1 – season 2 released in 2023.) Gaiman began his writing career as a journalist after a childhood being left, feral, at libraries where he was introduced to the inter-library loan. Love a good ILL story, friends. An author with a cult following is always an interesting creature, and most of that cult following comes not from his prolific collection of novels, but from the comic books he’s authored specifically Sandman. There’s not one Gaiman title that I would say no to reading, even or especially his titles for young readers!

Like most Gaiman novels, I didn’t quite know what to expect as the beginning exposition of the story doesn’t match the marketing copy. Gaiman usually takes quite a little while for the plot to pick up and The Ocean at the End of the Lane is no exception. We, as readers, always love when the protagonist is a reader, and when I read about how Gaiman was a young boy who was also a reader it feels a little autobiographical at the beginning and how many readers become writers. I also loved how our protagonist had a kitten that he loved then lost and was reminded that like all living things they are “kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together…” It is our memories as humans that make us who we are and Gaiman tells us at the very beginning of the book that “Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet, but they are never lost for good.” We can always find our way back to ourselves, our true self as long as we can access our memories.

I’m giving The Ocean at the End of the Lane four stars for such excellent writing, a hidden theme, and a protagonist that loves reading like I love reading. What book have you read that’s given you some big feels when you finally figure out the theme that’s hidden in a plot like childhood toys at the bottom of a closet?

~Ashley

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