It was strange picking up Glass Soup. While The Wooden Sea and White Apples fit together into the same sequence, they fit together plot wise but not so much right where the last one left off. Glass Soup is a very direct sequel to White Apples. There's enough background information in it that you don't necessarily have to read White Apples first, but I'd still recommend doing it. For one, it really helps you feel more for the characters and the choices they make.

I feel strangely about the book as well due to the ending. Having just finished it, I'm still in that strange post-reading haze where I can't decide what I think. The book was beautiful, as most of Carroll's books are. His commentary on the nature of life and his idea of God are also incredibly intriguing. It definitely takes the cake for the most shocking opening images, and did get a few laughs out loud.

Most of what I can say about it is that there was a marked difference between Carroll's worldview in Glass Soup than in The Ghost In Love. I think that is primarily what stopped me from enjoying it as much as I could have. I tend to be a bit more optimistic. ( )

This book is a sequel to “White Apples”, which I did not know before I started reading. Apparently it doesn’t much matter; the gist of it is that Vincent and Isabelle fell in love, Vincent died, and Isabell did the whole Orpheus thing and went to the land of the dead and brought him back to life. “Glass Soup” takes place very shortly after that. Isabelle is pregnant, and her child is a very important one: the fate of the universe hinges on whether he is born in the land of the living or of the dead. This novel is Order fighting against Chaos, with Isabelle’s child representing Order.

The story actually starts when Simon Haden wakes up into a world where he is a tour guide (it takes place in Vienna). The bus is driven by an octopus; one passenger is made of butter; another is a really bored bag of caramels. A 6” tall man named Broximon hangs out with him. It turns out that AC/DC was right: there is literally a multilane highway to Hell. Simon, as he finally figures out, is dead. The afterlife is made of every single dream and nightmare a person has had in their life. Ugh.

The plot has various beings- one of them a shape-shifting, womanizing, serial killer- trying to get Isabelle on one side of life or death or the other. I really liked it, and I’m not even sure why. I disliked pretty much all the characters. But overall the book as fascinating. It’s a love story, and a story of friendships, despite God being a polar bear. Four stars out of five. ( )

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. ( )