Reality television has introduced fool’s gold and false glittering, gleaming feelings as what love “feels like”, but stories like this are wonderful reminders about the true nature of loving and being loved. It hurts. It really, really hurts. But it’s one of the only solaces available to everyone, one of those common graces for mankind.
I loved the reality and grittiness of both the inner fable and outer narrative. My kind of dream story with which to curl up and relax and to inspire me with warmth, hope, and light would be the inner story with its fantastical happenings, clear good versus evil adventure, and a clear hero in the Hoggit.
The ambiguity tortured me past to the last page.
Added to the existing trauma, twists, developing clues, hot-button topic flares, etcetera made for a story that was provoking, and not exclusively in the thought-provoking. I was emotionally wrecked the whole time I was reading this story. The narrative affected my waking hours although, thankfully, left my sleep alone. My heart is not okay. Maybe readers should read this with a therapist on speed dial.
I feel more strongly than ever the disorientation of what is wrong and what is right for Brio, for the world, etc, but I don’t like feeling like this. So the craft is good, but the emotions are painful.
