A review by cornmaven
The Mostly True Story of Jack by Kelly Barnhill

3.0

I liked this treatment of creation mythology and the examination of the many selves of an individual human being. Even though I am not usually a fan of fantasy fiction, I stuck with it, I think because I cared about the characters and there was enough mysterious stuff that compelled to keep reading to "find out". I didn't like the names given to the Creator, i.e. She and the Other. It didn't seem reasonable that if this town had been dealing with her two selves for generations, that they wouldn't have come up with different, more definitive names.

I thought Barnhill got a bit too weird toward the end, but I did like the idea of Jack finally finding his true self, and how he was connected to everything. Plus the notion of selflessness that was implicit in the story. And I also think that fans of fantasy fiction probably would have like this one better than I did.