Have you ever read a book because you didn’t believe the reviews and wanted to prove them wrong?

I was looking for an audiobook to listen to during a long drive. A review from the New York Times Book Review caught my eye. ”Imagine The Life of Pi, The Alchemist, and The Midnight Library rolled into one fantastical fable.” I laughed out loud and thought there is no flipping way someone hit that on a debut novel. When I went into Story Graph, their synopsis started with ”The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi in this dazzlingly epic debut…..” Needless to say, I downloaded the book.

I finished the book yesterday and I’ve got to say NY Times and Story Graph were right. There were elements of all four books without being a copy job. It can definitely stand up with all of them. I would put the writing style closer to Invisible Life with flashes of The Alchemist from time to time. I was very happy to be proven wrong. I gave it 5 stars.

I was proofreading this and almost hit send before realizing I never told you the name of the book. Oops! It’s A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke.