The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Several people said this was their favorite Bohjalian novel so it must be me. I thought it was okay, I enjoyed reading it and I liked the wilderness bits and i liked the hollywood bits but overall, it’s not a story that will stay with me as much as some of his others have.

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The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

“The mind works wondrously; it is capable of astonishing feats. It is the only machine in nature capable of thinking one thing while knowing its opposite. The bright, busy surface of life—that is the key. How easily it distracts us, like a magician who waves a wand with one hand while, with the other, he plucks a rabbit from his vest.”

What a wild ride this book was! It starts in what looks to be a utopian world of people who live in a beautiful and secluded island where life is perfect but it quickly becomes clear that there are issues brewing just below the surface. Class issues, political unrest, and more hidden secrets.

Proctor lives in this beautiful world, married to a stunning woman and has a respected job as a Ferrryman who escorts people who are at the end of their lives to the ferry so they can be retired. Proctor’s dad gets belligerent and utters what seems like nonsense words on the day he is retiring and that starts Proctor’s journey towards unraveling the spool of lies.

“Here is the golden morning, we say; here is the beautiful sea. Here is my beautiful home, my adoring wife, my morning cup of coffee, and my refreshing daybreak swim. We look no deeper into things because we do not desire this; neither are we meant to. That is the design of the world, to trick us into believing it is one thing, when it’s entirely another.”

Unlike the whole world, I have not read The Passage before so this was my first Cronin book and I could not put it down from the moment I picked it up. The world was so vividly portrayed, the characters were so well constructed and it was so clear that something was deeply wrong that it was hard to not want to stay up all night to find out what was behind Prospera.

“It’s all very complex, and it seems to him that within this complexity lies the true essence of loving a child: a joy so intense that it can feel like sadness.”

And when I got to the 70% mark and bits and pieces of the story started unwinding and I started putting together the truth, for some reason, it felt like a bit of a let down. I really enjoyed the author’s creativity and the plot was really one I could not have come up with so it was a pleasant surprise to have it be so unique and wild. I enjoyed every moment I spent with this book.

with gratitude to netgalley and Random House Publishing for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

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