This is my second Victor LaValle and after the Ballad of Black Tom having washed through me and left me wanting so much more, I was very, very happy to be reading this. 
 It has a very different feel in one way, but in another, it's exactly like coming home. Being in the story you always want to be in. What do I mean? 
 The devil is in the details. It's very homey, feeling like delightful snapshots of family and home, full of the sweet and the bitter and the genuinely odd stuff that always comes along with life, and this feeling never lets up even after the really funky stuff starts messing with the MC. I felt warm and wrapped snugly in the story in a way that I rarely do, or at least, not this deeply. Maybe it's because of the new parenthood threads or maybe it's because of the geeky book-nerd outlook or maybe it's because the deepest thread in the novel happens to be one of the darkest myths handed down through the ages, but anyway that I looked at it, I was invested. 
 From high hopes to deep stress to tragedy, horror, and a long, wrought quest full of very emotional reveals, this novel manages to put us through the ringer. I loved all of these characters. And I mean love, love. I'm still thinking of them in the same way that I keep thinking of Black Tom. It's the realization, amazing ability that all these characters come right to life and stay with us. 
 And of course, it's the story, too, and what a mindf*** that was. :)