The Children hooked me immediately, but kept me at arms length so I never felt truly settled. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but I tore through this one. Final Score: 3.75

(Content Disclosure: This book and review discuss childhood neglect that crosses into abuse)

What This Book Does Well This is an adult dark fairytale with horror elements - all elements I love. It’s about a beloved children’s fantasy series and the real children who inspired it. I kept thinking of Chronicles of Narnia but with the obsessive fandom of Harry Potter when it was in its peak, except now we’re following the actual author’s kids and something is very wrong underneath. The mystery was addicting for me, I ended up finishing this book in under 24 hours. Even well past the halfway mark, when I still couldn’t quite put the pieces together, I trusted the author enough to keep going.

The prose, at its best, is the kind of thing I will stop and reread. When it lands, it really lands. Guinevere, the protagonist, worked for me even though she isn’t always the most likeable protagonist. She is an adult coasting on her dead mother’s name, struggling to reconcile the childhood people assumed she had and her actual lived experience. This is the lens that I read the book through, what actually happened to those children and how it impacted them as adults, and on that level it absolutely delivered.

Where It May Fall Short Some of this is going to sound contradictory to what I just said about and I want to be careful to not reveal much about the story.

Something felt off the whole time and I still can’t decide whether it was intentional. Within a single paragraph there’d be one metaphor that made me go wow, and then a second one I couldn’t parse at all. I’d get pulled out of the story to figure out what a line even meant as a general concept so I understood the vibe the author was going for - and several of them I’m still baffled on.

In hindsight from the lens I was reading this book through, this worked for me, but didn’t land as hard as it could have. I think this might be one of those books where on a reread I would appreciate it more, but on my first read it felt like I was walking the fine line between trusting the author to pull this off, but not trusting them enough to give the "wrongness" of some of the metaphors the benefit of the doubt.

Strangely though, when it seems like the author tried to clarify the metaphors immediately, it also didn’t land well for me. For example, there would be a metaphorical sentence and then immediately after a one or two word sentence clarifying the previous sentence. It may be personal preference, but it felt repetitive and clunky when it came up, but thankfully, wasn’t super frequent.

Similarly, there are points in the narrative that in hindsight I can make work because of the lens I’m reading through, but during my first pass it felt like the author was intentionally keeping things from me for the sake of the mystery, more than an element of storytelling. Now that I have finished the book, I’m still wondering what exactly was missing here for me, because this has all the elements I love, but I still feel like I’m in limbo with the book.

Final Thoughts, Opinions, & Recommendations I’ll be curious to see how this one is received, but I can see it being pretty divisive. I landed somewhere in the enjoyed it but not fully converted camp personally. I can see other readers reading this and thinking it’s genius and others thinking it was too muddled.

I think you might find a lot to enjoy here if you like atmospheric literary horror and dread that lives in the prose itself. In some ways, this book reminded me of The Haunting of Hill House and Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic blended with the sharp commentary on art, fame, and exploitation as Mona Awad’s Bunny duology and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

If you don’t like metaphor-dense prose or if you need a mystery that ties off with a clean, satisfying click - the ambiguity here is a feature, and whether it's a feature you enjoy is exactly the gamble.

My thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the Complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

TL;DR Would I recommend it? Cautiously yes Would I reread it? Maybe, I could see myself reading it again, but I’m not jumping to right now. I think I could enjoy it more on a reread though. Would I read more by this author? Yes, I’m curious enough to come back.

Star Score Breakdown Personal Enjoyment: 4 Overall Execution: 3.75 Craft & Writing Quality: 3.5 Characters: 4 Plot: 3.5 Final Score: 3.75

This book is a short read but not necessarily easy. I know of Rob Bell from podcast appearances and wanted to try it. Rob believes in God (I am not sure I do), believes that Jesus is the Son of God (I am not sure I do) and references many stories in the Bible (are these stories fact or fiction anyway?) Nevertheless, Love Wins is a very comforting read and reaching the end, I felt content. Maybe I don’t need to worry myself in circles, stress out about my job or making friends, or have anxiety about growing older. I can see why this book is seductive. Four stars!