I was really touched by this book. Neil Gaiman uses childhood memories to create something and it's both beautiful and terrifying. It's a kind of Lunar Park, though I wouldn't be able to tell you which of the two books is scarier. I read them at two different parts of my life, and as much as Lunar Park disturbed me I don't think it was as profoundly as The Ocean at the end of the lane. I saw bits of myself in this book, small echoes. 
 And even without that, I loved it. I loved every single page of it.