The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

This book is a lot. A lot of characters with dual purposes. A lot of movement and action in a place that's hard to visualize. A lot of narrative changes which reveal information so far apart, it's hard to pull it together. I still don't totally understand the ending, but I get it enough to feel a little, "meh," about it.

A secret world exists right beneath our feet. It's a world that holds story -- all of it. People find this world because they're meant to, by going through the right door. While it seems that most people who make the discovery just go down and enjoy being surrounded by caverns upon caverns of books, a few enter with a purpose to fulfill. Zachary and Dorian are two of those people. Lured down by the discovery of two curious books, and aided by two locals of this underground world, the men must complete a journey full of fear, pain, heartache, and ultimately love. One that concludes rocking along the waves of the starless sea, which seems to be a living thing itself, on its own mission.

This synopsis leaves out a ton of characters and a lot of action. It's all difficult to explain and harder to summarize. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you. Suffice it to say, this is a book about love and creating the right situation for the love you're meant to have to grow. It also drives home how complicated it is to find happiness.

I almost feel like this is the kind of pseudo-philosophical story a developing writer creates before they really know anything about writing. There's a compulsion to put all your thoughts into the story without self-editing, to use a lot of metaphor, and to blur good concepts with an excessive amount of words. While I like the ideas toyed with in the book -- love, human connection, and the evolution of a person's story -- the setting really overcomplicates things. There's just too much to this book all around. The physical space and layers of time within the story somehow dilute the ending, which I feel should have hit with a more exciting punch.

This book is tough to recommend. I liked it, but I wish the story had pieced itself together better. There's definitely something here worth reading. An adventure is always fun. It just doesn't feel totally right to me.