The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel

By Neil Gaiman

A brilliantly imaginative and poignant fairy tale from the modern master of wonder and terror, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Neil Gaiman’s first new novel for adults since his #1 New York Times bestseller Anansi Boys.

This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and memory and magic, makes the impossible all too real...

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9780062255679

Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is the celebrated author of books, graphic novels, short stories, films, and television for readers of all ages. Some of his most notable titles include the highly lauded #1 New York Times bestseller Norse Mythology; the groundbreaking and award-winning Sandman comic series; The Graveyard Book (the first book ever to win both the Newbery and Carnegie Medals); American Gods, winner of many awards and recently adapted into the Emmy-nominated Starz TV series (the second season slated to air in 2019); The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which was the UK’s National Book Award 2013 Book of the Year. Good Omens, which he wrote with Terry Pratchett a very long time ago (but not quite as long ago as Don’t Panic) and for which Gaiman wrote the screenplay, will air on Amazon and the BBC in 2019. Author photo by Beowulf Sheehan

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

It was only a duck pond, out at the back of the farm. It wasn’t very big.

Lettie Hempstock said it was an ocean, but I knew that was silly. She said they’d come here across the ocean from the old country.

Her mother said that Lettie didn’t remember properly, and it was a long time ago, and anyway, the old country had sunk.

Old Mrs. Hempstock, Lettie’s grandmother, said they were both wrong, and that the place that had sunk wasn’t the really old country. She said she could remember the really old country.

She said the really old country had blown up.

PROLOGUE

I wore a black suit and a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes, all polished and shiny: clothes that normally would make me feel uncomfortable, as if I were in a stolen uniform, or pretending to be an adult. Today they gave me comfort of a kind. I was wearing the right clothes for a hard day.

I had done my duty in the morning, spoken the words I was meant to speak, and I meant them as I spoke them, and then, when the service was done, I got in my car and I drove, randomly, without a plan, with an hour or so to kill before I met more people I had not seen for years and shook more hands and drank too many cups of tea from the best china. I drove along winding Sussex country roads I only half-remembered, until I found myself headed toward the town center, so I turned, randomly, down another road, and took a left, and a right. It was only then that I realized where I was going, where I had been going all along, and I grimaced at my own foolishness.

I had been driving toward a house that had not existed for decades.

I thought of turning around, then, as I drove down a wide street that had once been a flint lane beside a barley field, of turning back and leaving the past undisturbed. But I was curious.

The old house, the one I had lived in for seven years, from when I was five until I was twelve, that house had been knocked down and was lost for good. The new house, the one my parents had built at the bottom of the garden, between the azalea bushes and the green circle in the grass we called the fairy ring, that had been sold thirty years ago.

I slowed the car as I saw the new house. It would always be the new house in my head. I pulled up into the driveway, observing the way they had built out on the mid-seventies architecture. I had forgotten that the bricks of the house were chocolate-brown. The new people had made my mother’s tiny balcony into a two-story sunroom. I stared at the house, remembering less than I had expected about my teenage years: no good times, no bad times. I’d lived in that place, for a while, as a teenager. It didn’t seem to be any part of who I was now.

I backed the car out of their driveway.

It was time, I knew, to drive to my sister’s bustling, cheerful house, all tidied and stiff for the day. I would talk to people whose existence I had forgotten years before and they would ask me about my marriage (failed a decade ago, a relationship that had slowly frayed until eventually, as they always seem to, it broke) and whether I was seeing anyone (I wasn’t; I was not even sure that I could, not yet) and they would ask about my children (all grown up, they have their own lives, they wish they could be here today), work (doing fine, thank you, I would say, never knowing how to talk about what I do. If I could talk about it, I would not have to do it. I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all). We would talk about the departed; we would remember the dead.

The little country lane of my childhood had become a black tarmac road that served as a buffer between two sprawling housing estates. I drove further down it, away from the town, which was not the way I should have been traveling, and it felt good.

The slick black road became narrower, windier, became the single-lane track I remembered from my childhood, became packed earth and knobbly, bone-like flints.

Soon I was driving, slowly, bumpily, down a narrow lane with brambles and briar roses on each side, wherever the edge was not a stand of hazels or a wild hedgerow. It felt like I had driven back in time. That lane was how I remembered it, when nothing else was.

I drove past Caraway Farm. I remembered being just-sixteen, and kissing red-cheeked, fair-haired Callie Anders, who lived there, and whose family would soon move to the Shetlands, and I would never kiss her or see her again. Then nothing but fields on either side of the road, for almost a mile: a tangle of meadows. Slowly the lane became a track. It was reaching its end.

I remembered it before I turned the corner and saw it, in all its dilapidated red-brick glory: the Hempstocks’ farmhouse.

It took me by surprise, although that was where the lane had always ended. I could have gone no further. I parked the car at the side of the farmyard. I had no plan. I wondered whether, after all these years, there was anyone still living there, or, more precisely, if the Hempstocks were still living there. It seemed unlikely, but then, from what little I remembered, they had been unlikely people.

The stench of cow muck struck me as I got out of the car, and I walked, gingerly, across the small yard to the front door. I looked for a doorbell, in vain, and then I knocked. The door had not been latched properly, and it swung gently open as I rapped it with my knuckles.

I had been here, hadn’t I, a long time ago? I was sure I had. Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet, but they are never lost for good. I stood in the hallway and called, Hello? Is there anybody here?

I heard nothing. I smelled bread-baking and wax furniture polish and old wood. My eyes were slow to adjust to the darkness: I peered into it, was getting ready to turn and leave when an elderly woman came out of the dim hallway holding a white duster. She wore her gray hair long.

I said, Mrs. Hempstock?

She tipped her head to one side, looked at me. "Yes. I do know you, young man, she said. I am not a young man. Not any longer. I know you, but things get messy when you get to my age. Who are you, exactly?"

I think I must have been about seven, maybe eight, the last time I was here.

She smiled then. You were Lettie’s friend? From the top of the lane?

You gave me milk. It was warm, from the cows. And then I realized how many years had gone by, and I said, No, you didn’t do that, that must have been your mother who gave me the milk. I’m sorry. As we age, we become our parents; live long enough and we see faces repeat in time. I remembered Mrs. Hempstock, Lettie’s mother, as a stout woman. This woman was stick-thin, and she looked delicate. She looked like her mother, like the woman I had known as Old Mrs. Hempstock.

Sometimes when I look in the mirror I see my father’s face, not my own, and I remember the way he would smile at himself, in mirrors, before he went out. Looking good, he’d say to his reflection, approvingly. Looking good.

Are you here to see Lettie? Mrs. Hempstock asked.

Is she here? The idea surprised me. She had gone somewhere, hadn’t she? America?

The old woman shook her head. I was just about to put the kettle on. Do you fancy a spot of tea?

I hesitated. Then I said that, if she didn’t mind, I’d like it if she could point me toward the duck pond first.

Duck pond?

I knew Lettie had had a funny name for it. I remembered that. She called it the sea. Something like that.

The old woman put the cloth down on the dresser. Can’t drink the water from the sea, can you? Too salty. Like drinking life’s blood. Do you remember the way? You can get to it around the side of the house. Just follow the path.

If you’d asked me an hour before, I would have said no, I did not remember the way. I do not even think I would have remembered Lettie Hempstock’s name. But standing in that hallway, it was all coming back to me. Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me. Had you told me that I was seven again, I might have half-believed you, for a moment.

Thank you.

I walked into the farmyard. I went past the chicken coop, past the old barn and along the edge of the field, remembering where I was, and what was coming next, and exulting in the knowledge. Hazels lined the side of the meadow. I picked a handful of the green nuts, put them in my pocket.

The pond is next, I thought. I just have to go around this shed, and I’ll see it.

I saw it and felt oddly proud of myself, as if that one act of memory had blown away some of the cobwebs of the day.

The pond was smaller than I remembered. There was a little wooden shed on the far side, and, by the path, an ancient, heavy, wood-and-metal bench. The peeling wooden slats had been painted green a few years ago. I sat on the bench, and stared at the reflection of the sky in the water, at the scum of duckweed at the edges, and the half-dozen lily pads. Every now and again, I tossed a hazelnut into the middle of the pond, the pond that Lettie Hempstock had called . . .

It wasn’t the sea, was it?

She would be older than I am now, Lettie Hempstock. She was only a handful of years older than I was back then, for all her funny talk. She was eleven. I was . . . what was I? It was after the bad birthday party. I knew that. So I would have been seven.

I wondered if we had ever fallen in the water. Had I pushed her into the duck pond, that strange girl who lived in the farm at the very bottom of the lane? I remembered her being in the water. Perhaps she had pushed me in too.

Where did she go? America? No, Australia. That was it. Somewhere a long way away.

And it wasn’t the sea. It was the ocean.

Lettie Hempstock’s ocean.

I remembered that, and, remembering that, I remembered everything.

I.

Nobody came to my seventh birthday party.

There was a table laid with jellies and trifles, with a party hat beside each place, and a birthday cake with seven candles on it in the center of the table. The cake had a book drawn on it, in icing. My mother, who had organized the party, told me that the lady at the bakery said that they had never put a book on a birthday cake before, and that mostly for boys it was footballs or spaceships. I was their first book.

When it became obvious that nobody was coming, my mother lit the seven candles on the cake, and I blew them out. I ate a slice of the cake, as did my little sister and one of her friends (both of them attending the party as observers, not participants) before they fled, giggling, to the garden.

Party games had been prepared by my mother but, because nobody was there, not even my sister, none of the party games were played, and I unwrapped the newspaper around the pass-the-parcel gift myself, revealing a blue plastic Batman figure. I was sad that nobody had come to my party, but happy that I had a Batman figure, and there was a birthday present waiting to be read, a boxed set of the Narnia books, which I took upstairs. I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories.

I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.

My parents had also given me a Best of Gilbert and Sullivan LP, to add to the two that I already had. I had loved Gilbert and Sullivan since I was three, when my father’s youngest sister, my aunt, took me to see Iolanthe, a play filled with lords and fairies. I found the existence and nature of the fairies easier to understand than that of the lords. My aunt had died soon after, of pneumonia, in the hospital.

That evening my father arrived home from work and he brought a cardboard box with him. In the cardboard box was a soft-haired black kitten of uncertain gender, whom I immediately named Fluffy, and which I loved utterly and wholeheartedly.

Fluffy slept on my bed at night. I talked to it, sometimes, when my little sister was not around, half-expecting it to answer in a human tongue. It never did. I did not mind. The kitten was affectionate and interested and a good companion for someone whose seventh birthday party had consisted of a table with iced biscuits and a blancmange and cake and fifteen empty folding chairs.

I do not remember ever asking any of the other children in my class at school why they had not come to my party. I did not need to ask them. They were not my friends, after all. They were just the people I went to school with.

I made friends slowly, when I made them.

I had books, and now I had my kitten. We would be like Dick Whittington and his cat, I knew, or, if Fluffy proved particularly intelligent, we would be the miller’s son and Puss-in-Boots. The kitten slept on my pillow, and it even waited for me to come home from school, sitting on the driveway in front of my house, by the fence, until, a month later, it was run over by the taxi that brought the opal miner to stay at my house.

I was not there when it happened.

I got home from school that day, and my kitten was not waiting to meet me. In the kitchen was a tall, rangy man with tanned skin and a checked shirt. He was drinking coffee at the kitchen table, I could smell it. In those days all coffee was instant coffee, a bitter dark brown powder that came out of a jar.

I’m afraid I had a little accident arriving here, he told me, cheerfully. But not to worry. His accent was clipped, unfamiliar: it was the first South African accent I had heard.

He, too, had a cardboard box on the table in front of him.

The black kitten, was he yours? he asked.

It’s called Fluffy, I said.

Yeah. Like I said. Accident coming here. Not to worry. Disposed of the corpse. Don’t have to trouble yourself. Dealt with the matter. Open the box.

What?

He pointed to the box. Open it, he said.

The opal miner was a tall man. He wore jeans and checked shirts every time I saw him, except the last. He had a thick chain of pale gold around his neck. That was gone the last time I saw him, too.

I did not want to open his box. I wanted to go off on my own. I wanted to cry for my kitten, but I could not do that if anyone else was there and watching me. I wanted to mourn. I wanted to bury my friend at the bottom of the garden, past the green-grass fairy ring, into the rhododendron bush cave, back past the heap of grass cuttings, where nobody ever went but me.

The box moved.

Bought it for you, said the man. Always pay my debts.

I reached out, lifted the top flap of the box, wondering if this was a joke, if my kitten would be in there. Instead a ginger face stared up at me truculently.

The opal miner took the cat out of the box.

He was a huge, ginger-striped tomcat, missing half an ear. He glared at me angrily. This cat had not liked being put in a box. He was not used to boxes. I reached out to stroke his head, feeling unfaithful to the memory of my kitten, but he pulled back so I could not touch him, and he hissed at me, then stalked off to a far corner of the room, where he sat and looked and hated.

There you go. Cat for a cat, said the opal miner, and he ruffled my hair with his leathery hand. Then he went out into the hall, leaving me in the kitchen with the cat that was not my

Reviews for The Ocean at the End of the Lane

[quaintlittlehead · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Up until reading this book, the word "fantasy" to me conjured up images of King Arthur, "The Chronicles of Narnia," "The Dark is Rising," and "The Black Cauldron." These works have something in common: good and evil are clearly defined, and there is a quest for one to vanquish the other, which the reader can always sense that it inevitably will. Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" turned everything I thought I knew about fantasy on its head. There is no hero's quest per se, but a great mystery that the reader and main character keep trying to unravel together. You can never tell exactly where this book is going to go or whether it will even end well, building in a level of suspense that makes this like no other fantasy I have ever read. Aside from "Coraline," this book was my first dip into the wide waters of Gaiman's writing, but I am certain that I have now been swept into their ocean.

[bensdad00 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Read aloud with the family - went in blind purely on the author's reputation. It stands with any of his others as a modern classic.

[a.happy.booker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a children's fairy tale made for adults. Like most of Neil Gaiman's books, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is so quirky and surreal that it is difficult to summarize and review. Reading this was like drifting off into a dream, or a long forgotten childhood memory. The story begins when a middle-age adult wanders back to his childhood home and visits the farm where he recalls some unusual events taking place when he was very young. As he reminisces on these strange happenings, a rather eerie fairy tale unfolds for the reader.

I listened to this on audio which is always such a treat when Neil Gaiman is narrating his own stories. Gaiman so perfectly captures every nuance of expression and personality of his characters as well as creates an almost dreamlike atmosphere for the story itself. He is absolutely a master storyteller. The Ocean at the End of the Lane was quite short, not quite a novella but rather shorter than most novels, but it still managed to contain a complete and hypnotic story.

I would absolutely recommend this and every other book Neil Gaiman has written to anyone who enjoys an unusual and beautifully written fairy tale.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I don't know how to review this. Skimming other people's reviews there's a lot of debate over whether it's adult/young adult fiction (haven't seen anyone advocating for "new adult", or whatever the term is -- that is one genre it certainly isn't, even saying that as someone in my mid-twenties), or about the length. Or people just enthuse (or don't). It's certainly a very quick read. As for who it's suitable for -- there's a quote somewhere in it about myths, about how they're stories that just are. "I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were." That's how this felt to me.It certainly has points best appreciated by different audiences. I don't know if Diana Wynne Jones was alive to read it in any form, but she would have been an ideal reader for it, I think. There's something on the mythic level that would appeal to a child (at least one like the narrator, which I think I was -- certainly you could say of me that "I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else"). And there's an adult level, about memory, and forgetting, and nostalgia for childhood. Some of which I think Gaiman is very wise about. For example...:I do not miss childhood, but I do miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from the things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.A lot of people think they miss childhood, but they're looking back at a utopian fantasy. But here Gaiman's narrator (which people to some extent seem to identify with him himself) is picking out something about childhood that we really do lose: the ability to live in the moment. Or at least, he gets nearer the heart of it than many people do.Despite that, just as a story... I don't know how much I enjoyed this. I suspect I'm the wrong age for it, in a way. I'm still a bookish kid at heart in enough ways that I appreciated the mythic aspects, but I think the adult aspects, the question of memory... I think that'll be more meaningful when I'm older. If it helps to pin down my reaction, I will certainly read this again someday. Right now I do resonate with the brief image we get of the narrator at twenty-four, uncertain and unhappy, searching for reassurance.The mythic aspect of Gaiman's world is fascinating: ultimately unknowable, somehow, even as it focuses on mundane things like broken child's toys and mending clothes. That leaves you with little to get hold of -- and, as with many things about this book, I'm ambivalent about that, too.

[hnmyers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Once again, Neil Gaiman has put together a beautifully crafted tale. This tale begins when a man returns to the town he grew up in to attend a funeral. While avoiding the awkward post-funeral exchanges, he ends up strolling through a surreal and terrifying memory lane. He remembers an epic and terrifying series of events and the incredible friend who saw him through.The story is well crafted and enjoyable, but the real joy of reading this book was in the language itself. The words had a strong cadence and flow. The rhythym of story felt almost poetic and carried me easily from beginning to end.

[snapsandreads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Eccentric and beguiling – two of the characteristics that I could associate Neil Gaiman and this book with. Though this didn’t appeal to me as much because it typically belongs on the super young section, I still loved the story’s oddness; something I would give credit for.. Something that I have always been fascinated with.

[eilonwyhan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A man recalls the horrific summer of his seventh year, and the magical sacrifice that saved him. Absorbing and chilling read.A man returns to a country lane where he lived forty years ago, and begins to remember a trauma he suffered when he was seven years old. The family's tenant, a gregarious South African opal miner, has committed suicide because he lost all of his money gambling, including that of his investors. This death awakens something old as time, an entity that desires nothing more than to take over this world and shape it to its own needs. Unfortunately for our narrator, it has used him to enter this world, and begins its takeover by using his family to terrorize him. Fortunately for our narrator, the Hempstock family down the lane has taken him under their protective wing. Through their quirky, creative, and VERY old magic, the three women face down this ancient entity and protect their young charge.Gaiman's dedication said: "For Amanda, who wanted to know." It seemed to me as I read this book that elements of some of his other books, mainly Coraline, seeped into the story. The parents, at first loving, turn into something "other" and the father becomes downright sinister. I'm realizing that in some ways, Gaiman's stories are a lot like Roald Dahl's: full of adults who are at the very least negligent of their children, and at the worst, verging on homicidal. Children are left to fend for themselves, using their own strength and wits. It was almost a relief that there were adults in this book that were fiercely protective, and didn't witter on about helping or staying out of the family's business. I wondered as I read it, "Was some of this plucked from his own experience, hence the dedication? If so, wow."I read this book really quickly, it was that absorbing. I love the way Gaiman writes. Somehow he creates fully-realized worlds without flowery prose. I could see the country lane and smell the surrounding fields of grass. I could picture the ramshackle, but tidy, Hempstock home, and feel the weight of the world fall from our narrator's shoulders the moment he entered it. There were a couple rather adult scenes in it, so I would not give it to anyone under late-teens, though it was a lot like Coraline or The Graveyard Book in tone.

[flying_monkeys_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rating: 4.5 of 5Neil Gaiman is a master storyteller who conjures vivid imagery and instantly believable worlds with so few words that, when finished with one of his stories, I'm left in a euphoric mixture of wonder and contentment.What I loved most about The Ocean at the End of the Lane?Without a doubt the Hempstock women and the seamless blend of two worlds.A few of my favorite quotes from the book:"Nobody actually looks like what they really are on the inside. You don't. I don't. People are much more complicated than that. It's true of everybody (p. 112).""Children, as I have said, use back ways and hidden paths, while adults take roads and official paths (p.113).""I wished I could have seen who was talking. If you have something specific and visible to fear, rather than something that could be anything, it is easier (p. 138)."

[tjwilson_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A nouveau mythology here. Enough magical mystery to be intrigued. Sharp and concise. A modern fairy tale with a modern, if not scientific, twist.A nice treatise on what it’s like to change, to forget and to remember.

[tybeet_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It was an enjoyable read, and the story moved at a decent clip, but I felt the characters and the story were underdeveloped. The supernatural elements were jarring and overdone at times, and only seemed to be there for shock value. I didn't take much away from reading this.

[scribe77_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It has been a while since a book has compelled me to sit down and read it mostly cover to cover without stopping. But this one did. It's also a book where I find myself lacking somewhat in words to describe it properly, to do it justice. The book really doesn't need a review; it speaks for itself.It's an old-fashioned fairy tale, wrapped up in mythology, at times sad, scary, sweet, and full of imagination. The book gets in your head and swirls around, sticking in places as you turn the page. You, as the reader, are immersed in sounds, sights, and smells most wondrous and fantastic and characters haunting and magical. It simply is an amazing book.

[jlharmon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel is going to stick with me like the best kinds of short stories, which I think comes from Gaiman's original short-story intentions. There are certain scenes, like in all the Gaiman books I've read, that are just REALLY weird, and they are going to pop into my thoughts at inopportune moments, so thanks for that, Neil Gaiman. The 4 instead of 5 stars is because this book left me somewhat uneasy during and after I read it. I didn't like the uncomfortableness, and I think it may have something to do with the uncomfortableness of the truths Gaiman was trying to tell. But there are also some great passages and lines and ideas about the nature of things, and particularly the nature of people, and childhood, that rang so true for me. (That was a run-on. Oh well.) What is the different between a child and an adult? Is an adult still the same person as the child they used to be? If something happened, but you don't remember it, does it affect who you are? If something didn't happen, but you remember it, does it still matter? What is a monster? Are monsters less monstrous if they get scared of something higher on the food chain? Who are we, really? These are questions fundamental to growing up and being a human. And they are answered, or at least raised, by the adventures of a 7-year-old who gets mixed up in some magical goings-on at the end of his lane.

The narrator is never named, but reading (and listening to) Neil Gaiman's words gave me the distinct impression that this boy IS Neil Gaiman, or at least an imagined, magical-adventure-going version of 7-year-old Neil Gaiman. Who knows, maybe everything in the book is a real-world fact, and that's why Gaiman writes the books he does. It felt very personal, and with lots of details that I'm sure are real-life about England and growing up on this particular lane.

I got this book at the signing in Portland, and I also picked up the audio book. I started and finished the book in paper, but listened to the middle on audio book - read by Gaiman himself. I have to say the audiobook experience was more enjoyable. Maybe because it was so clearly Neil Gaiman as a child, him reading it just made more sense then me trying to read a first-person narrative about a boy totally different from myself on the surface...but this book does dredge up the many ways humans are alike at the core. I wasn't trying to put myself into his shoes, as I feel many YA authors try to force in their first person narratives. But even still, I felt a connection with the narrator as a more complex person, and the human universals were made even more apparent when I wasn't trying to find them. And that is the trick of this book: it tells you things you didn't think you needed to hear, things you weren't expecting, and things that you're going to have to think about for many more years since Neil Gaiman has had 30 more years to think about things.

[protoplasm-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book just didn't have the same charm as his other works. Forgettable.

[nu5bibliophile · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this in one sitting. As I predicted, Gaiman's words of imagination awed me.

[jdifelice-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5/5 stars
This book was very good. It was very atmospheric and creepy and I just had to keep reading. I really enjoyed the world Gaiman created with Lettie and the main character (who I'm pretty sure, we never actually find out his name?, I can't remember it if we did), was quite magical. It was imaginative and fun, and believable.

I enjoyed the characters and the mystery behind Lettie and her family. They were all well developed and I thought they were written well. They were quite likeable and realistic. The "villain," Ursula was also just so creepy! I kind of kept reading because I wanted to read the resolution of the story before I went to sleep, so I wouldn't have weird dreams about it.

I did feel like something was missing, as I was reading, but I cannot put my finger on it. I think it was just that it was so short.

Overall, quite enjoyable, with a very atmospheric writing style, with just enough whimsy and magic.

[valzi-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent fantasy story about childhood adventures, fears, and elsewise. The first two chapters are my favorite two Gaiman chapters.

[uberbutter · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
182 pages

★★★★

Neil Gaiman has never disappointed. His books are always so full of wonder and imagination. This book is no different. What started out as a short story for the author quickly turned into a novel. But I still wished it has been longer. Gaiman is such a wonderful writer that I could read his words for much longer than 182 pages. On the flipside, the shortness if the book ensured that there was never a chance for a dull moment – one gets to the point right away. I really loved the characters in this book. The bad and creepy characters were…really creepy. And I adored the Hempstock family, I can’t imagine who wouldn’t. Overall, a great read. Full of fantasy and beauty.

[4everfanatical · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am not sure what to make of this book. The story was beautiful I just had a hard time imagining it in my head. I'm not sure if that was because my imagination was a bit slow or the book did not have as much rich description as I would have liked.

It reads like a fairytale, nostalgically told from the memory of a middle aged man - told as the perspective of a young boy and an adventure he has one day with a neighbourhood girl.

It is a tale that includes magic, monsters and impossible realities like a pond being an ocean.

It was fun to read I did enjoy it, I just had trouble visualising it, I would have liked more descriptive prose but that is something that would have personally made it better for me.

[carinarodrigues-2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I was severely underwhelmed by this book. The basic story itself is good: A middle-aged man returns to his hometown for a funeral and finds himself sitting at the edge of a pond remembering the life of his seven year old self. The ideas of sacrifice and memory and growing up are interesting enough. There was just too much unnecessary magic for me. The beginning and the end were quite good, as were some of the in-between parts. But there were whole chunks where the magic was drawn out to unnecessary lengths. There is a touch of magical realism here, of course, but it's not good magical realism. It's fantasy purely for fantasy's sake.

[erika.d · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting and quick. I liked that the story was filled with small amounts of mystery and magic. It was a little spooky but it ended well and kept my attention from start to finish.

[joyhclark · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Neil Gaiman has a brilliantly twisted mind. I feel privileged to get a glance into it from time to time. Probably my favorite Gaiman book of all time.

[cassandra2020 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - Good

I'm still trying to decide whether I was disappointed in this or not. First of all, it's more of a novella than a novel - it took me an afternoon to read. Secondly, I'd built it up as something I was saving to read and on reflection I should have just read it straight away as I built up to be something more than it was.

It is a charming little book about childhood and how we look back and misremember - or do we? An unknown man has returned to his hometown for a funeral (we never find out his name or whose funeral). By 'chance' he ends up where his old home used to be and finds the house of neighbours: the Hempstocks. There he starts to remember his friendship with the daughter of the house: Lettie and the adventures they had. This is where the 'fantasy' aspect of the book kicks in as he remembers parts of his childhood but with the spin of a child's understanding and logic coupled with fairy tales and witchcraft. At the end of the book you are left wondering if his 'childish' memories or the 'real' memories are what really happened. Who is to say what is real and what isn't?

A nice bit of escapism, but I prefer other of Gaiman's work.

[theokester · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Over the years I've decided that I enjoy scary or creepy stories but I'm not a huge fan of the "horror" genre for books or movies because they often end up having too much gore, violence, sex, profanity or other "R rated" content that I'm not just a fan of. As such, I've stopped reading a handful of books that otherwise seemed to have a very cool premise. Sadly, one author who's been set down frequently has been Neil Gaiman...and yet, some of his books have been absolute favorites. I've come to the conclusion that I'm a fan of Gaiman's children or YA books or else his shorter stories (which seem to be less graphic). Anyway, I read a lot of great reviews about The Ocean at the End of the Lane and so I gave it a try...and I've very glad I did. As I read the book, I tried to categorize the book in terms of audience or style and found that it teetered on the edge between categorizations. The book focuses on an adult male protagonist returning to his old hometown for a funeral and coming to terms with some strange occurrences of his youth. With the main story arc taking place in his youth, it seemed a good candidate for that "YA" categorization. But in terms of what's become the stereotypical themes and tone of contemporary YA, this book leaned more towards an adult novel. It had some darker, heavier themes beyond the simple "coming of age" teenage story or the standard teenage adventure novel. At the same time it did have some youthful elements that could almost appeal to older children. While a bit heavy for young children, the story does explore themes of children having to deal with the "bad" elements in the world such as death or unkind/hateful people in ways similar to Gaiman's popular children's novel Coraline. I felt like some of the scenes in Ocean are a bit scarier than those in Coraline so I'd bump it up to a Middle Grader or higher age rating but otherwise I feel like the book is good for all ages. As with Gaiman's other works, the concepts are fun and intriguing while still feeling familiar. He pulls on threads of tried-and-true themes and concepts to expose them in unique ways that feel fresh and interesting. I love the development of our unnamed protagonist as he works through the strange events in his life, especially after meeting young Lettie Hempstock. The characters and the environment felt very real and vibrant and I would love to learn more about them all. I really loved the unique fantastic elements that come about through the events of the story. They felt very based in old folklore and campfire stories...creepy and off kilter enough to know they're fantasy, yet vivid enough to allow for that spark of belief that they might just be real. There are a lot of great ideas and wonderful imagery that I'd love to share but I don't want to spoil the surprises and the enjoyment of encountering them on your own so I will just suggest that you take the time to pick this book up and give it a read. It's fairly short so you can read it quickly. If you're easily unsettled, read it during daylight and be sure to keep the lights on. It's not so scary that you'll be haunted (at least I don't think so), but the themes and tones will stick in your mind and leave you thinking about the light and dark things in the world all around us. ***** 4.5 out of 5 stars

[deldevries · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Captured my attention, but then wrapped me tighter and tighter into the details and the drama of dark and light, inner and outer, real and unreal. This is a great book!

[pennsylady · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"a man revisits his childhood home, and the past comes flooding back."-------" narrator sits down and recalls the magical and traumatic events that befell his seven-year-old self."

[maureencean · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think Gaiman is an author that should really be listened to, as he narrates his own works. You know you hear every word, every inflection, every pause, the way the author intended. I don't think it gets any better than that. I don't need to say a lot here, read the review of anyone else who truly enjoyed this novel, and you will get the gist of it. This may sound odd, but for me, this was almost a love story.

[sloopjonb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gaiman's books usually leave me feeling a bit cold (except for Stardust), but I rather liked this. There was a warmth and, I don't know, an optimism that I often find lacking in his work. I loved the Hempstock, um, family. I want to read more about them. And the evocation of childhood fears was spot on, which brought back some bad memories, and so it should.

[durgaprsd04-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It is not something that I expected . It is just so strange and meaningful. The story synopsis is quite simple , its about a boy being saved by a girl("some girl") as she sacrifices herself for him. It is quite a narrative that makes you think about universe in a whole new perspective. The book gives you a strange feeling of warmth , of eternal continuity, a weird sense of overwhelming.

Plain and Simple "I Liked It".

[lynleys-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't like this as much as I thought I would. Increasingly I find Gaiman's prose slightly condescending to a thinking adult reader. I'd consider this an MG/YA novel.

[tlkirsten · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Neil Gaiman is such a freak in a really good way - great book, and very engaging. Gaiman is a master storyteller. This is an adult book that is also suitable for mature teens, and because it is very short, it is also suitable for those who don't have the attention span or time to get through longer novels.