This book is so very slow. I honestly didn't want to keep going after the first 75 pages. Then, as I tried to figure out what the characters were all doing, and why they were all headed on their mysterious journey "East" I figured it had to get better so I wanted to give it a shot.

Let me preface this by saying that I've never read Dante's Inferno. But once I saw the reference to Aecheron, I figured this whole book had to have something to do with hell.

The writing style was nice, the execution as a whole fell flat for me. I felt almost nothing for the characters at all. And once I did figure out that they were in some sort of level of hell/purgatory, the plain jane names of the characters, ie, "Kathy" trying to lead them back in just sucked me out of the story completely.

The story itself takes so long to get going and there is too much gauzy, hazy "mystery" buildup that it left me feeling bored and unimpressed.

I continued reading in the hopes that the ending would feel redemptive somehow, but that was another disappointment. I was just about as wrung out as the characters were by the time I reached the end and there was no joy in their discovery for me.

This book was just not my cup of tea.

*Please note that I won a copy of this via Librarything.* ( )

I received this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Program for free, in return for an honest review.

First, I want to say two things. The first is that I think this book does itself and readers a disservice by holding back the author's inspiration from the blurb. I think it would be more likely to attract interested readers, and also be more engaging from the beginning, if that literary point of inspiration/connection were advertised. As it was, the early chapters feel more vague than satisfying--enough so that I paged to the back in search of some sort of author's note. This isn't something I normally do, but it seemed so certain that I was missing something, I didn't see what choice I had. Sure enough, I found an 'Author Note' that referenced a particular piece of classic literature as a reference. I won't mention it here since the blurb holds it back, and so I suppose it would have to be considered a spoiler, but considering how directly the author works from that point of reference, and that he says he hopes this book will be 'a mirror' to that one... well, again, I think it's a disservice to readers, to pretend that that isn't a crucial piece of information. I've read other books that used the same reference point beautifully, and I would have read this one, too--with even more excitement--if it had been advertised in that fashion.

The second thing I want to say is that, so far as I can tell, I'm the exact target audience for this book. I love mysterious, speculative works. I'm always glad to see literary allusions and reference points. And I love genre fiction as much as I love literary fiction.

So, on to the review. As you've probably guessed by now, just from that beginning, this book just didn't hit the right chord for me. There were some fantastic scenes where the writer's talent shown through, but so much of the first half (especially) was based more in atmosphere than story, it was incredibly hard to engage with the book. And I never got to a point where I felt any real momentum, or compulsion to keep reading. I think the central problem is that the author was working from such a direct reference point, but he was trying also to make this book its own book that could stand on its own. As a result, we ended up with a fairly drawn-out story that didn't have a particularly cohesive or clear plot--until you understood the reference, at least, and could get some better feel for what was happening. But, at that point, it just seemed belabored.

I think this probably could have been a fantastic novella. Or maybe it even would have been a great novel, if the writer had embraced his reference point a bit more and made it clearer from the beginning, really leaning into it. As it is, though, I kept reading simply because I'd started reading, and it's hard for me to imagine recommending this book except in a situation where readers wanted a work feeding off of that literary reference I mentioned. ( )

3.5 stars

A village of only 9 people (all the others have already left, with the rest likely to leave soon, as well) is in the shadow of a mountain. A mountain that holds bad memories for everyone, though none of them remember those memories. Nor do they remember any memories of before the mountain. Dan vaguely remembers, though, that he has a brother. A brother who’s still in the mountain. Dan won’t leave until his brother comes out.

I did get a peek at a review ahead of time that indicated something about religion in this book. Lucky for me, it wasn’t super obvious or hit-you-over-the-head with it. I mostly enjoyed the story, but the end was a bit... I don’t want to say too much, but I could have done with a bit of a different ending. I would have preferred not quite such a happy ending, but I guess with it being somewhat religious in nature, that’s how it ended. It was just a bit too happy/sweet for me. ( )

If you want a book that has a lot of twists and turns scattered throughout its pages, then look no further. I found myself turning the pages as quickly as possible because it was that good. I did recognize a lot of similarities with that of Dante's writing, which made it all the better. I definitely related to a few of the characters, and each and every one of their stories had a bittersweet tone to it. All in all, I greatly enjoyed this book and I hope to read more from the author in the very near future. ( )

Having missed the release date for the book, I bought it on audio. I can't be sure if one of the issues I have is with the audiobook narrator or with the prose itself, but something about the main character, Dan, made my skin crawl. I was so uncomfortable being in his head, that I couldn't finish the novel. While I'm okay with unlikeable characters, there's a limit to how much exposure I want to them, and I need something to balance that out. That something was missing from this book. There's a big mystery about the town and the what lies on the other side of the mountain that seems to have a menacing effect on the people in the town, but sadly, it wasn't compelling enough for me to spend more time in Dan's head.