It does impact their lives, it’s not ignored or forgotten, but at the same time it does not define them. I also think the portrayal of disability was very well done. My only complaint would be that in the middle of book two, when female characters are introduced, they are defined mostly in terms of their relationship to our male protagonists, but luckily, it improves somewhat when some get their own POV chapters. The characters are colourful, known only by their nicknames (even the counsellors) and while not everyone is particularily likable, I found all of them interesting, though to go into any specifics would quickly stray into spoiler territory. The plot is slow and meandering and the supernatural elements aren’t immediately obvious – it takes quite a while to go from “Is that guy having some weird delusion or does he really…?” to the point where it can’t be handwaved away anymore and becomes obvious there must be something to it all. It’s full of camaraderie, humour, creepiness, eccentric characters, delightful absurdity, sides both dark and light, relatively realistic and surreal, serious and not. We start with Smoker, being thrown out from the orderly, straight-laced Pheasants who live in the House, but are not really of it, into the chaotic Fourth and the House proper with all its Laws, customs, taboos, and strange things taking place. But they are the only books I can think of that come even slightly close. If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say it’s a bit like The Secret History crossed with Every Heart a Doorway with a heavy dash of surrealism thrown into the mix.
Genre-wise, it’s the closest to Magical Realism or perhaps Literary Fantasy.
But it is, obviously, much more than that. The story takes place in the titular House, a boarding school for disabled children and teens. True to the quote, it’s rather hard to describe. Kill you, make you old, give you wings … It’s a powerful and fickle deity, and if there’s one thing it can’t stand, it’s being reduced to mere words. It can accept you or not, shower you with gifts or rob you of everything you have, immerse you in a fairy tale or a nightmare. It’s brilliant, it’s criminally underrated, and while I realise that it’s not for everyone, it’s probably the best book I’ve ever read. Taking pauses and breaks, because just like its inhabitants I didn’t want to leave. Since I finished it, I’ve been gushing about it to everyone who’d listen. As a rule, I prefer reviewing books that are brilliant but flawed, since usually they are the only ones that can’t be reduced to a couple of sentences.
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