Glass Soup

Carroll writes beautiful prose. Reading this book, I was actually compelled to stop, call my friends one by one, and read to them from the book; it was that splendid. I've never done that before.

Makes me wish I remembered more of what happened in White Apples, but enough is recapped that I can get by. While this is technically a sequel, I think one could probably read this without having read the other and still have it make sense. Well, as much sense as Jonathan Carroll ever does. ( )

I enjoyed the magical realism in this book. I especially liked how Vincent, Isabelle, Simon and Leni learned to face their fears and how to defeat Chaos's plans. ( )

I found this book during a random trip to Goodwill. Most of the times I've gone there I'll come out with a couple books that end up being nice additions to my collection. Most times, though, I usually don't find books that are just spot-on for my taste using this method. Living in the Bible Belt, there aren't just a whole lot of second hand books with metaphysical and surreal themes. Jonathan Carroll is known for his magical realism, which if you know me, you know I love some magic (read: any fantastic stories, not just witch/troll/fairies etc). However, I really don't like when authors go overboard with saccharine characters and perfectly predictable plots which end up with everything exactly as it should and all are happy and woodland critters help you clean your room and sing Disney songs to you... If you feel me.

In this book the afterlife is created out of the dreams and subconscious thoughts a person had while they were alive. Danger is following a living woman named Isabelle and her unborn child, whose birth will effect all of existence and the balance of power between Chaos and Order. The only person who can help her is a dead man who may not even know he is dead yet.

I made the mistake of reading this book without knowing it is actually a sequel to another book by Carroll, called White Apples. I had no idea it was a sequel until after I was done but it really didn't matter. This book is fine as an independent and worked well as a stand-alone, and I think that says something. (Although I will now be finding White Apples and reading it asap if its half as good as this one - but I hear its even better!) ( )

After seeing Neil Gaiman’s endorsement on the front cover, I had to pick up a copy of Glass Soup. What I found inside was wonderful, from cover to cover. It begins seemingly ordinary, but very quickly transforms into a weird and wonderful story including many interesting ideas about the afterlife.

In retrospect, this book would probably even be better if I’d read other Jonathan Carroll books that include characters that then appear in this novel, but it still works as a stand-alone novel. Wonderful stuff. ( )