Summary and Reviews of The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Media Reviews

Chicago Tribune [W]ry and freaky and finally sad. . . . This is how Gaiman works his charms. . . . He crafts his stories with one eye on the old world, on Irish folktales and Robin Hood and Camelot, and the other on particle physics and dark matter.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Gaiman has crafted an achingly beautiful memoir of an imagination and a spellbinding story that sets three women at the center of everything. . . .[I]t’s a meditation on memory and mortality, a creative reflection on how the defining moments of childhood can inhabit the worlds we imagine.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune Remarkable . . . wrenchingly, gorgeously elegiac. . . . [I]n The Ocean at the End of the Lane, [Gaiman] summons up childhood magic and adventure while acknowledging their irrevocable loss, and he stitches the elegiac contradictions together so tightly that you won’t see the seams.

Salon The impotence of childhood is often the first thing sentimental adults forget about it; Gaiman is able to resurrect, with brutal immediacy, the abject misery of being unable to control one’s own life.

The Atlantic Wire [A] story concerning the bewildering gulf between the innocent and the authoritative, the powerless and the powerful, the child and the adult. . . . Ocean is a novel to approach without caution; the author is clearly operating at the height of his career

The New York Post This slim novel, gorgeously written, keeps its talons in your long after you’ve finished

The Wall Street Journal Mr. Gaiman labels [his novel] ‘for all ages,’ which is exactly right. It has grief, fear and regret, as well as love and awe-adult emotions, but children feel them too…. [L]ike all Mr. Gaiman’s work, this is fantasy of the very best

USA Today [W]orthy of a sleepless night . . . a fairy tale for adults that explores both innocence lost and the enthusiasm for seeing what’s past one’s proverbial fence . . . Gaiman is a master of creating worlds just a step to the left of our own.

The Times (UK) His prose is simple but poetic, his world strange but utterly believable - if he was South American we would call this magic realism rather than fantasy

Booklist Starred Review. Gaiman mines mythological typology - the three-fold-goddess, the water of life (the pond, actually an ocean) - and his own childhood milieu to build the cosmology and theater of a story he tells more gracefully than any he's told since Stardust...[a] lovely yarn

Kirkus Reviews Starred Review. Poignant and heartbreaking, eloquent and frightening, impeccably rendered, it's a fable that reminds us how our lives are shaped by childhood experiences, what we gain from them and the price we pay.

Library Journal Starred Review. Scott Smith's The Ruins meets Astrid Lingren's Pippi Longstocking. A slim and magical feat of meaningful storytelling genius.

Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Gaiman (Anansi Boys) has crafted a fresh story of magic, humanity, loyalty, and memories "waiting at the edges of things," where lost innocence can still be restored as long as someone is willing to bear the cost.

Reader Reviews

NutrButr
Thoughts
I had a family recommend this book to me saying that it was a good read. Neil Gaiman is an author I had heard of before as well, but didn't think much of him at the time. After finishing the book, I feel that the story was worth the read. At times it...   Read More Amy
Easily drawn in
The book was interesting. I enjoyed the way memories come through as you read. It was like having a conversation as I read. Diana C
Where's the rest of it?
I was so very excited to read this book, but when I went to pick up a copy at my local bookstore and saw the size of it (very slim and small) I was disappointed before I ever even opened the front cover. I don't know about you, but I like a large, ...   Read More Dorothy L
Disappointing Read
I'll be brief. I did not like this book. Why? It seemed obscure just to be obscure. It just seemed like the classic conflict of good and evil with new symbols that didn't work. I could not get into it at all. The only thing I thought ...   Read More

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