Paperback, 448 pages
Published March 6, 2018 by Spiegel & Grau.
This book seemed to be dragging a little in the beginning but them bam! And the books starts getting super weird and interesting and I pretty much could not put it down. Well narrated by the author.
This book went in a completely different direction than I initially expected, and I loved it more than I thought it would. It's extremely gruesome (tw: child death, gore, child abuse, emotional abuse, domestic violence) and very bleak, and despite all the heaviness I couldn't put this book down. Enter here if you love magical realism set in New York City and can sit with multi-generational family trauma. The audiobook is narrated by the author and done beautifully.
Apollo's father left him and his mother when he was a small boy, so when Apollo becomes a father, he wants to give Brian everything he never had. He is one of those new fathers, doing his part and forever taking photos and sharing on Facebook. But one day his wife, Emma, starts acting odd. She doesn't believe Brian is their baby. When the unthinkable happens, Apollo is drawn into a new reality, one where New York harbours something out of fairytales.
The Changeling is a dark but engaging story. It plays on the fears of being a new parent, that you won't love the child like you should or that something terrible will happen when your back is turned. It also gives a whole new meaning to internet trolls, intertwining ancient folklore with the modern age.
Apollo is a used book dealer, and the only other black man in …
Apollo's father left him and his mother when he was a small boy, so when Apollo becomes a father, he wants to give Brian everything he never had. He is one of those new fathers, doing his part and forever taking photos and sharing on Facebook. But one day his wife, Emma, starts acting odd. She doesn't believe Brian is their baby. When the unthinkable happens, Apollo is drawn into a new reality, one where New York harbours something out of fairytales.
The Changeling is a dark but engaging story. It plays on the fears of being a new parent, that you won't love the child like you should or that something terrible will happen when your back is turned. It also gives a whole new meaning to internet trolls, intertwining ancient folklore with the modern age.
Apollo is a used book dealer, and the only other black man in the trade is his friend Patrice, and they are often viewed with suspicion. They stick together but when Apollo finds a signed first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird, he keeps it quiet. If the find seems too good to be true, it's the key to leading them down the rabbit hole.
Where a white protagonist could walk to his destination at night without a second though, Apollo is challenged for nothing more than being a black man in a white neighbourhood. As well as the supernatural fear, there is this constant niggle that he might not make it because of his skin colour. It makes me want to shout at him when he lingers too long over a genuine crime, get out of there now!
