Portable Monsters
Reading, for me, is entertainment and an escape from the real world. But it can also inform and stretch the boundaries of the life I live.
Currently reading
The Forgotten Garden ★★★★★
I loved this story. The structure is a little convoluted, as it follows three storylines in time, slowly unravelling the mystery of a child who was found abandoned on an Australian dock. There is the story of the child, the story of the child as a mature woman searching for her origins, and the story a grieving young woman seeking answers to what her grandmother was up to. But the characters and the damage wrought by selfishness and secrets and lies and the emotions of grief and love and loss really drive this story as much as the mystery. I loved the parallels to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and I was also irresistibly reminded of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. Not just the overt theme in Silverstein’s story of the glory of sacrificing everything for a loved one, but also the underlying theme of how the ones you love may just take and take and take until you are mutilated beyond recognition.
Audiobook, purchased via Audible. Caroline Lee’s performance is outstanding.
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