MixedFull Stop... while the execution of this novel supplies a hybrid-gravity of folklore, history, poetry, and science, the absence of imminent danger or risk made it easy to feel distant from the story itself ... a fascinating engine, but a force that stopped at intrigue before it got to emotional investment ... the events of this story pale in comparative thrust to Luisa’s fabulist observations, yielding the portrait of a young woman whose primary conflict is that of being assailed by her own unrelenting fabulism ... The tonal-darkness of this novel is ever-present and completely absent at the same time ... the ever-wandering flow of the prose comprised largely of reveries makes the novel feel like a journal dripping with nostalgia ... Despite its title, there are no archetypal monsters; no villains; no lovable characters compelled by circumstance to commit immoral acts; no impossible odds to overcome; no serious betrayals portrayed or retributions gone too far. People and events of this nature are alluded to at points, but Aridjis avoids entertaining her readers with hatred for and/or fear of her primary characters. Without these relationships to the characters, this novel stays rooted in a state constantly before and after baser states of fear (and joy for that matter) ... Though I yearned for an emotional hook that never presented itself, I can’t deny the allure of portraying life, especially in transitional moments, as a chaotic lingering between reality, memories, structures, and dreams; Aridjis’s facility for depicting this mysterious braid of experience is as unstoppable as the hulking force of the ocean crashing and spreading itself thin and glassy across ancient layers of sand.
