Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.72 Stars Content Rating: Strong PG Parallel stories set in different times, one told in prose and one in pictures, converge as a Ella unravels the mystery of the girl next door. 1982: Mary is a lonely orphan at the Thornhill Institute for Children at the very moment that it's shutting its doors. When her few friends are all adopted or re-homed and she is left to face a volatile bully alone, her revenge will have a lasting effect on the bully, on Mary, and on Thornhill itself. 2017: Ella has just moved to a new town where she knows no one. From her room on the top floor of her new home, she has a perfect view of the dilapidated, abandoned Thornhill Institute across the way, where she glimpses a girl in the window. Determined to befriend the girl, Ella resolves to unravel Thornhill's shadowy past. Told in alternating, interwoven plotlines—Mary's through intimate diary entries and Ella's in bold, striking art—Pam Smy's Thornhill is a haunting exploration of human connection, and a suspense-filled story. (goodreads.com) In honor of this book being halfway told by beautiful illustrations, I’ve decided to share how I came across this book and part of my reaction to it in picture form. Enjoy my fantastic art skills: After that you probably don’t even need me to give my usual kind of remarks on the book, but since Thornhill is also told with words I’d better use some too. Let me say that I have mixed feelings about this book. So if I seem a bit back and forth about whether I liked it or not it’s because I’m not sure. For one thing, I thought the story telling was very well done and the illustrations were amazing. I loved that it was a different format from your typical novel and I love the dark lack-of-color scheme. It just looks so enticing and spooky and wonderful. It is a visually appealing book and I love that. But the story, man! It was well told and I was interested all the way through. I was fully invested in the characters. And I can’t say much without spoilers, but yeesh! That ending made me made, sad, frustrated, oddly happy, and satisfied all at the same time (I had similar feelings after Avengers: Infinity War). I don’t know how that happened but I kind of like a book that leaves me reeling, you know? It makes the excitement more authentic I think. Basically, this book was about two girls with thirty-five years that separate them who both just want to fit in and have friends, but are having a hard time of it. The girl in 1982, Mary, tells her story in the form of a diary. She describes the horrors the other girls living at her girls’ home put her through and how she deals with that (not in a healthy way, I’m going to be honest). The girl in the present, Ella, has her story told through gorgeous illustrations. She is facing life without her mother and with her father absent most of the time. She just moved into a house right by Thornhill and she keeps seeing a girl on the grounds of the old school who she wants to befriend. And this was a really interesting story. This novel was meant to be spooky, I think, and I know a lot of other people who read it are complaining that it wasn’t actually that scary. Okay, but… try reading it at midnight with all the lights in the house off except your reading lamp. That’s when you get scared to look up from the book because you’re afraid of what you’ll see (or won’t see) in the shadows. At least, that’s how I read all scary things to maximize the creepiness. And it really worked for the illustrations toward the end of the book. Yikes. I will admit that it could have been a lot creepier, but I think part of it is that sometimes print isn’t the best format for a scary story. A movie of Thornhill probs would have had me cowering behind a pillow. I don’t do scary movies. The creepiness level of this book was like a mild version of Neil Gaiman, I think. It kind of reminded me of The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Coraline a little. Anyway, it’s a really interesting book, for sure. It’s just odd. And sad. I don’t know if I recommend it or not. I would give you a warning for potential triggers for bullying and possibly suicide, so be wary of that. Otherwise, I mostly enjoyed this novel I think. Of course, you could flash beautiful covers and illustrations in my face and I’d probably say I liked nearly anything. Heck, if they made math books pretty enough I might have ended up doing something math related with my life. Eh, actually, I don’t think even books can be that persuasive. Thanks for reading my review! I hope you enjoyed it! What do you think of telling stories through illustrations? Have you read any other books told in this format, like maybe The Invention of Hugo Cabret or Wonderstruck (both by Brian Selznick)? I haven’t, but I’d be willing to try some more because I really liked it in Thornhill. Well, I am off to go make some creepy puppets and leave them around the grounds of an abandoned school. Ta-ta! Book cover source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33163379-thornhill
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
|