★★★☆☆
“This book is the book you have just read. It’s done.” The first line in Neil Gaiman’s acknowledgement section perfectly sums up my feelings about this book. It captures the liminal nature and mild horror of Gaiman’s other fictional stories, with the same grasp of magical realism —this time a little more unreliable and a bit more fantastic, since majority of the story is seen through the eyes of a 7-year-old. The narrative is also well-structured, and neatly (if horrifyingly) loops back in the end. But it really is just a book that I have just read.
There are other more exciting Gaiman works, or even works on fantastical adventure-thrillers, hence the three stars. Though some sequences are particular page-turners —especially when the inciting event to the conflict was being built-up, somewhere in the first third of the book— the rest feels weightless and even a little too familiar. A book that could be finished in maybe two or three sessions took me more than a month to get through. Nevertheless it remains a solid read, if not something to rave over or recommend in particular.
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jari m 
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