Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Review Ghosts of Heaven By Marcus Sedgwick

One time I was in a bookstore and I was searching for a book for English class. We were about to have a booktest a couple weeks later so I decided to run to the big and probably the only real bookstore in town. When I was standing between the tables full of books I was hoping to find this one, awesome book which I and would love to read and could review positively and easily. Because the last book I had bought for my bookpresentation for Dutch class didn't turned out to be that great. I was there for like 15 minutes and then - as if the angels of heaven had put it there just for me to see - I found this beautiful book with a spiral staircase called "The Ghosts of Heaven". I read the first few pages of the book, which were written in a verse-like style and immediately thought - this is it. This is the right book. And it definitely was.


Summary


Another book which is quite hard to summarize without spoiling the whole story or without putting the whole book on the internet. You could say that the book's all about spirals, but that wouldn't totally be true. Yes, spirals play their part in this story but it goes further than that. This book travels through time, starting off with the prehistory in which a girl is on the brink of creating the earliest form of writing, followed by witch hunts in the 17th century and a doctor in the 1900s who's trying to save a mad poet with a crazy obsession for spirals in an insane asylum, ending with a voyage on a spaceship which is set off to another world for the first time. And in all of them the spiral is present.
But what does it mean?

My opinion


Rate: 9.5/10

Wow, was my first reaction after I read this book for the first time. Wow, wow, wow.
This book is so mindblowing that it's impossible to dislike it! In the beginning I was afraid that this story would turn out to be very vague and incomplete, but Sedgwick has proven me wrong. His book is a mix of historical fiction, science and philosophy - three things from which I've never thought they'd make a good storybook. Maybe fun for in a schoolbook, but for in a story? Neh.
But then again a point on which Sedgwick has proven me wrong.
I do have to say - it isn't a book for everybody. It's a book for people who like to think deeper while reading, otherwise this book won't make any sense to you and it won't be fun to read. 
But when I read this book I feel like Sedgwick has put me in some timecapsule and I'm literally travelling through time. And he does this simply by his variation in writing styles. In the beginning the verse-like style, then the narrator-like style, then the dairy-like style and then again the narrator-like style. It makes me feel like I have as much knowledge as these characters and that I'm really in that time - every writingstyle fits the story perfectly in my opinion. Though I don't feel like I can really relate to these characters - it doesn't bother me. Because it isn't about these characters, they're more examples. It sounds vague - I know - but I can't say too much about it.
I find that Sedgwick has told me a message in such a unique way that it will stick with me forever. He literally became one of my favorite authors because of this amazing book. I won't tell you what the message exactly is, but it has something to do with human longing. 
Just read the book and you'll figure it out.
I'm really looking forward to reading more of his books!

O, and - by the way - does anyone who has read this book admire Dexter? I mean he's a real lunatic but he has so much knowledge. It seems like he knows so much about the world than the doctor who's trying to save him or anyone else. The fact that he as a lunatic can teach a doctor so much more about life is admirable and it kind of makes me want to meet lunatics like him. In short: I. LOVE. DEXTER.

That's it for this review!

Until the next blogpost! :)

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