I listened to the audio version of this book. The kids and I had listened to Coraline, which was also read by the author, and really enjoyed it.

But this one… the reading was fine, excellent, even, it’s just that the main story, the flashback to that time when he was a kid, just didn’t do much for me. I would have preferred it if the enveloping narrative about the man returning to the lane to sit by the ocean had been developed, dwelled upon more.

There wasn’t a terrible amount of suspense, and this isn’t a spoiler, because you’re told, in the beginning, that the guy is now in his 50s, returning to the lane, reminiscing. So the kid didn’t die. So that’s one worry off your mind. The mythology Mr. Gaiman constructed was fine, I suppose, the magic forest and mysterious ancient creatures playing just on the other side of our reality was fine, it just didn’t grab me at all. The revelations when he finally surfaces from his reverie by the pond were far more interesting, for me, and I wish there had been more of that.