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A review by ismerene
The Laws of the Skies by Grégoire Courtois
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
Though clocking in at a short 147 pages, The Laws of the Skies manage to pack punch after punch after punch - literally AND figuratively, to the point where it becomes almost darkly comical. There is no feel good story here, no satisfying conclusion or moral to be learned. It's death, child death, and little more.
Saw this reviewed on TikTok, and thought I'd give it a whirl despite the low rating and the obvious subject matter. It doesn't hold back letting you know exactly what type of story it is, and the tension is created knowing the deaths that will occur, leaving you to only guess how they will come about.
Unfortunately, that tension was punctured like a balloon with each subsequent incident, as it started to come off like The Gashlycrumb Tinies. I'm not sure if this was on purpose, or if it was because there was little to no story to carry them - the tragedies were the story - but it became darkly comedic in a not-funny-ironic sort of way. Even though I don't hate this book, it doesn't add anything to it's genre or really anything, in my opinion. The ending was less than a page long.
The other issue that heavily contributed to it's rating was the style of writing. At certain points, it was well-done, but would occasionally devolve into paragraph long spindles of thought that splintered until my eyes glazed over and I lost whatever point the author attempted to make. No 7 year old has thought spirals like that, and it only served to add to the heightened absurdity of the entire novella.
If you're morbidly curious - feel free to pick this up. But understand it's focus is only on the tragedies, and little else. I regret reading only because it doesn't really serve any purpose except to be depressing.
Saw this reviewed on TikTok, and thought I'd give it a whirl despite the low rating and the obvious subject matter. It doesn't hold back letting you know exactly what type of story it is, and the tension is created knowing the deaths that will occur, leaving you to only guess how they will come about.
Unfortunately, that tension was punctured like a balloon with each subsequent incident, as it started to come off like The Gashlycrumb Tinies. I'm not sure if this was on purpose, or if it was because there was little to no story to carry them - the tragedies were the story - but it became darkly comedic in a not-funny-ironic sort of way. Even though I don't hate this book, it doesn't add anything to it's genre or really anything, in my opinion. The ending was less than a page long.
The other issue that heavily contributed to it's rating was the style of writing. At certain points, it was well-done, but would occasionally devolve into paragraph long spindles of thought that splintered until my eyes glazed over and I lost whatever point the author attempted to make. No 7 year old has thought spirals like that, and it only served to add to the heightened absurdity of the entire novella.
If you're morbidly curious - feel free to pick this up. But understand it's focus is only on the tragedies, and little else. I regret reading only because it doesn't really serve any purpose except to be depressing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Violence, and Murder