The Ocean at the End of the Lane in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Oct 18, 2013 Renata rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, fantasy, re-read

Oh man, I used to be so obsessed with Neil Gaiman! Out of habit I pre-ordered this book and then it sat around my house for months because I didn't feel like reading it??? Anyway I finally read it and it turns out I still like Neil Gaiman, whew.

I wasn't expecting it to be so scary! It was kind of scary! It reminded me of one of the early Sandman stories, but in novel form and without the Sandman in it! It's like kind of ~classic Neil Gaiman~ in that it's about the power of stories and myth and ...more

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Dec 05, 2013 Maryam rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy

Actual rating : 3.5

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Aug 05, 2013 Rae rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2013, other-fiction

A middle-aged man returns home for a funeral and goes down memory lane in a big way.

Neil Gaiman writes like Roald Dahl on steroids. I find his work so fresh and quirky and delightful. I was absolutely enthralled by this tribute to childhood magical innocence, the wisdom and nurturing abilities of women, and the power of memory. Reading it gave me the same feelings as when I first read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes -- sensing intuitively that I was in the hands of a master storyt ...more

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Jul 26, 2013 gwen g rated it really liked it

Lovely and haunting and hard to classify. I found parts of it utterly terrifying -- including the underlying idea of the whole thing, which I can't describe without spoilers -- and parts of it utterly beautiful. And the language was spare and masterful. ...more

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Nov 11, 2013 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fascinating, creepy short novel that feels a little bit like a grown-up version of Coraline, in that it deals with alternate realities lurking just beneath the surface of our world and with horrors that only children can see and that must be battled without the support of the adults.

The adult narrator of The Ocean at the End of the Lane returns to his childhood town for a funeral and, without quite knowing what he is doing, drives back to his old home and th The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fascinating, creepy short novel that feels a little bit like a grown-up version of Coraline, in that it deals with alternate realities lurking just beneath the surface of our world and with horrors that only children can see and that must be battled without the support of the adults.

The adult narrator of The Ocean at the End of the Lane returns to his childhood town for a funeral and, without quite knowing what he is doing, drives back to his old home and then further down the road to the house at the end of the lane, where a dimly-remembered childhood friend had lived. He rings the doorbell and - still without quite knowing what he is doing - soon finds himself out back, staring at a pond that he remembers Lettie had insisted was an ocean. Something about the pond draws out old memories, and the bulk of the book is then told as a memory seen through a child's eyes.

After a lodger in his house commits suicide, strange things start happening, and the narrator's new friend Lettie takes him along to confront the bizarre creature she knows is causing the trouble. The creature turns out to be stronger than Lettie expected and manages to hitchhike back into our world, where she transforms herself into a beautiful young woman who is hired on as the narrator's family's new nanny. His parents and sister are delighted with the nanny; only he can tell there is something dreadfully wrong with her. She seduces his father and turns his whole family against him, making him a prisoner in his own house and subjecting him to tortures and terrors. He knows Lettie is the only one who can help him, but he has no way of contacting her while trapped in the house.

This is the sort of book that's both short and compelling enough that it's best to clear a few hours to read it in one sitting. It's very well done and worth a read. If you liked this, or if you just want to get a sense of the kind of creepy horror of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the short story "The Father-Thing" by Philip K. Dick is in a very similar vein and is also worth a read. ...more

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Jul 26, 2013 mandy rated it it was amazing

I read a Kindle sample and once I reached the end I knew I had to get the full book, immediately. Perhaps not my favorite Neil Gaiman but that's not saying much. It still earns five stars. ...more

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Aug 01, 2013 Mary rated it really liked it

A mixture of fantasy and fairy tale for adults. It's a small, quick read but one which I expect will linger in my mind for a great while. ...more

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Aug 06, 2014 Linda Parker rated it really liked it

Different, pretty creepy but not scary. Not a cherished book to love and read again but very entertaining.

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Nov 06, 2014 Ina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Second Magical Realism book I've read this year... pretty good! ...more

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Dec 13, 2013 Melle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, adult, read-in-2015, copyright-2013, fears, childhood, audio

Magical, bittersweet, and perfectly capturing the essence of childhood in its fears and wonder. I don't think I would have liked this nearly so much if I had read it in print, rather than having Neil Gaiman tell me a story aloud in my car. The right book at just the right time. ...more

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