The writing is beautiful!
The description of the island setting is captivating. The storyline is
easy to follow, and the tone is almost ethereal. The characters are
complicated, and Hepinstall keeps the reader guessing as to who is truly
sane and who is actually a raving lunatic. Hepinstall allows the reader
to learn each asylum patient's story from flashbacks, and she allows us
into the emotions of the doctor, his wife, and his young son Wendell.
I
cannot give this book a complete 5-star rating because there were some
loose ends that did not compute. For instance, there was a point where
Wendell claims to have math homework, but the entire storyline leads the
reader to believe this island is isolated with the only contact to the
outside world coming through the loading dock at the ocean. There are
two other things that stretch logic, but I will not comment lest I
reveal a spoiler.
There is a character (whom I was convinced was
sane) who did something so unexpected that I literally gasped.
Hepinstall tricked me so completely that I had to laugh at being taken
in so easily. An author who causes the reader to react (laugh, gasp,
cry) is truly a gifted wordsmith.
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