reprobatereader's review against another edition
Yes!! A dark modern fairytale, a brilliant homage to Queens, I devoured this whole and was enthralled the whole way through.
pharmdad2007's review against another edition
4.0
It was a little hard to figure this one out to start with. If I analyzed it too deeply, it would probably drive me crazy that there were so many loose ends, but overall it was a good mix of mystery, supernatural, and horror. Some nice twists that caught me off guard, which kept the story moving nicely.
kjboldon's review against another edition
5.0
Dark and mythic, well written and plotted, I loved reading it and want others to read it so we can talk about it.
morcabre's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
jess_segraves's review against another edition
4.0
What a page turner. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which I found creepy-but-not-too-creepy. I'm a bit confused about some of the fantastical elements but they're still well-done. Off to go cover my MacBook camera with tape...
pacardullo's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic, engrossing read. I love the way it builds, starting as a love story, it morphs into domestic horror to an almost mythic, but modern, quest, to something verging on mythos. All of the parts work together.
It draws the reader along, goes not where one expects it at all, and feels satisfying.
Really good stuff. Highly recommended.
It draws the reader along, goes not where one expects it at all, and feels satisfying.
Really good stuff. Highly recommended.
nathanrester's review against another edition
4.0
There's a weird sort of Neil Gaiman / William S. Burroughs vibe that runs through The Changeling like a vein, but that aloof fairy tale mood is intermittently pierced by challenging, sometimes even striking truths about parenthood, race, and social class. Some of the foundational narrative elements were off (an unlikable protagonist, for one) and the book probably has a stronger appeal to readers who are familiar with New York City. But it all comes together pretty well, and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys urban fantasy or magical realism.
bookcraft's review against another edition
1.0
LaValle's prose has a kind of lyrical spareness that I really enjoyed, but by the halfway point the content of the novel was making me uneasy for reasons I couldn't articulate. Sometimes that kind of of discomfort is a good thing ?? we feel it when we're being introduced to ideas that take us out of our comfort zone, ideas that make us aware of our own unexamined prejudices and biases ?? so I tried to talk through the possible reasons with my high-functioning, autistic, adult son, because he's got a gift for narrative analysis.
When I started outlining the plot and my reactions to it for him, I thought perhaps my discomfort came from the cognitive dissonance of both a) feeling strongly that as a society we need to do something about the fact that women's accounts of their experiences are too often dismissed as "being too sensitive" or even delusional, and b) my own inability (as a mother myself) to comprehend how a mother who wasn't delusional/mentally ill could commit infanticide in the belief that her baby wasn't a baby but a monster. At the point in the novel that I had reached, there was no indication that the world of the story was any different from our own modern world, no reason to believe that a group of women who murdered their children are anything other than suffering from the same mental illness, though I was open to the possibility that a more supernatural reason would be demonstrated to the protagonist later in the narrative.
After I'd outlined all of this, my son said, "Well, you know where changeling myths most likely came from, right? The child that's different from other children? The infant or toddler that suddenly changes, as though they have become an entirely different person?"
Cue the lightbulb over my head: The baby with Down syndrome, the nonverbal autistic toddler, any non-neurotypical child. I can't believe I didn't put the pieces together, but it absolutely explains my negative reaction, and exposes the problematic nature of the "changeling" narrative in that it dismisses children outside the narrow parameters of "normal" as unwanted at best and monsters at worst. We should be more enlightened by now, or at least we should be trying to become more enlightened instead of perpetuating the different = wrong stereotype.
On a slightly different note, I would give LaValle credit for having Apollo show empathy for the troll baby buried in his son's grave, if not for the fact that it was clearly still alive in some way ?? enough, at least, to react to his blood by trying to suckle. Re-burying it was kind of a creepy act, given that it was an innocent in the whole situation.
When I started outlining the plot and my reactions to it for him, I thought perhaps my discomfort came from the cognitive dissonance of both a) feeling strongly that as a society we need to do something about the fact that women's accounts of their experiences are too often dismissed as "being too sensitive" or even delusional, and b) my own inability (as a mother myself) to comprehend how a mother who wasn't delusional/mentally ill could commit infanticide in the belief that her baby wasn't a baby but a monster. At the point in the novel that I had reached, there was no indication that the world of the story was any different from our own modern world, no reason to believe that a group of women who murdered their children are anything other than suffering from the same mental illness, though I was open to the possibility that a more supernatural reason would be demonstrated to the protagonist later in the narrative.
After I'd outlined all of this, my son said, "Well, you know where changeling myths most likely came from, right? The child that's different from other children? The infant or toddler that suddenly changes, as though they have become an entirely different person?"
Cue the lightbulb over my head: The baby with Down syndrome, the nonverbal autistic toddler, any non-neurotypical child. I can't believe I didn't put the pieces together, but it absolutely explains my negative reaction, and exposes the problematic nature of the "changeling" narrative in that it dismisses children outside the narrow parameters of "normal" as unwanted at best and monsters at worst. We should be more enlightened by now, or at least we should be trying to become more enlightened instead of perpetuating the different = wrong stereotype.
On a slightly different note, I would give LaValle credit for having Apollo show empathy for the troll baby buried in his son's grave, if not for the fact that it was clearly still alive in some way ?? enough, at least, to react to his blood by trying to suckle. Re-burying it was kind of a creepy act, given that it was an innocent in the whole situation.
daynpitseleh's review against another edition
2.0
I received this from NetGalley in exchange from an honest review.
Your mileage may vary, but for me, this just didn't quite work. There were threads of ideas that might have worked individually, but it tried to mesh too many different things and the whole thing became a bit garbled for me. It felt like it was trying too hard. I was pretty interested in where it was going, but around the two thirds point, it just lost its way for me. Obviously, many other people really enjoyed it, but the whole concept and execution just didn't quite work for me.
Your mileage may vary, but for me, this just didn't quite work. There were threads of ideas that might have worked individually, but it tried to mesh too many different things and the whole thing became a bit garbled for me. It felt like it was trying too hard. I was pretty interested in where it was going, but around the two thirds point, it just lost its way for me. Obviously, many other people really enjoyed it, but the whole concept and execution just didn't quite work for me.
pandatheist's review against another edition
Its very long and very slow and, despite some heavily signaled spoilers to the contrary, has a weight of threatened domestic violence that I couldn’t keep enduring. The prose was beautiful but not enough.