Sharkchild works primarily at short-story length, which I think serves his strange, imaginative visions well. At novel / novella length the story suffers a little, a large portion of the book struggles with pacing issues, seeming to just meander around the hometown of Amory, our protagonist, and introducing the locations and characters who are his friends and rivals. This portion of the book honestly reminded me of the early levels of a video game, setting the idyllic scene for when things get weird later. The story does start twisting and turning later though, with strange locations and histories providing a lot of interest from there. The back half of the book definitely builds on and takes the established parts of the story in new, strange, and dark directions and I feel like I would definitely read the sequel the subtitle suggests will be coming. All-in-all an entertaining story if you can stay with it through the slower opening chapters. ( )

While I loved this book, I am glad to have read it on the kindle cloud reader. If not for that, much of the description would have escaped me, for Sharkchild seems to enjoy a dictionary's more lengthy boons.

I read this book in two sittings. The first was 10% and the rest in one go, today. It was amazing, even though it starts slow and too vague to be intriguing. I particularly enjoyed the restless resentment within our main character. It lent a real depth to his anger which transcended the usuals pitfalls of angsty teens. amazing book.

Keep an eye out for hurting feet! ( )