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Summary: Powerful exlporation of the aftermath of tragedy
Review: Frederick Reiken does a terrific job of examining of how the lives of survivors almost become frozen after the loss of a loved one. Through the use of a diary, we discover what an exciting world the victim -- Ethan -- lived in. In some ways he seems more alive than those he left behind. For anyone who enjoyed this book, I strongly recommend David Long's "The Daughters of Simon Lamoreaux." In it, a young teenaged girl disappears. The novel is told from her boyfriend's perspective, when he reunites, years later with her embittered/fragile sister. It's as powerful as Reiken's novel.
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Summary: A treasured gift from a friend
Review: One of the beauties of having the privilege of writing reviews in this section of Amazon.com is finding friends in fellow booklovers, comparing notes online, and discovering new books that otherwise might have escaped in the mass of new releases. Thank you, Joe, for this gift - THE ODD SEA. Frederick Reiken has authored a little miracle of a story that is unique, wondrously lucent despite the complexity of its components, and is one of the most tender novels about that ambiguous word "love" currently available. Why this did not become an instant best seller can only be blamed on the advertising that was lacking at the time of release. If word of mouth could ever be as powerful a force as we hope, the THE ODD SEA will surely rise again.The title is a simplification (or is it?) of "The Odyssey" which in turn refers to travelling the sea of life and of the beyond with all the inherent obstacles, bonds, losses and fortunes. The story is so well related in the Editorial Section that repetition seems unnecessary. In the most elegantly simple prose this story of a disappearing brother and the aftermath on a family and a town is a path toward discovery - of the meaning of familial love, understanding and acceptance of individuality, and the profound way that what begins as a tragedy can be so positive a force for the audience who bears witness. Rarely have even the most minor characters in a novel been so precisely drawn. What could have been a maudlin tale is quite the opposite: this is a story of self discovery, of coming of age, of familial bonding, of whatever we choose to see as an afterlife. Even while reading this book, entranced by the story, it is impossible not to relate the story to events in our lives that have had similar effects. In short, THE ODD SEA is a gift to us all and I can only offer a whispered "thank you" to Mr. Reiken......and to Joe. Read this Book!
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Summary: Where People & Things Disappear!
Review: This is a beautifully written story, told with deep emotion and a lot of love. I think this is one of the "best" books I have read in a long time. Reiken knows how to make you care about his characters & really love them. This book seems more like a true story than a work of fiction. One late Spring morning sixteen year old Ethan Shumway disappears and vanishes without a trace. Philip, Ethan's younger brother, narrates the events and feelings of all of his family and their friends after this tragic event that shocks and paralyzes all the community of this rural hilltown in western Massachusetts. Was Ethan abducted, kidnapped by a child molester or did he just want to disappear on his own for some reason? Will the truth be ever known, and does Philip and his family finally find out the reason he disappeared? Well, it's through Philip's emotional re-telling of the events of the last five years after his disappearance that make this such a wonderful story. How it effected Philip's parents, and his three wonderful sisters is a lesson in true family love. What a difficult and terrible thing to happen to a family that truly loves each other so much. Paul Reiken's writing is so realistic and emotionally tender and loving. I will never forget this book. It makes one wonder how and what you would do if the same situation happened to someone you love and care about very deeply. My highest recommendation. A stunning debut novel.
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Summary: A powerful and wise book about "absence"
Review: The Odd Sea is a powerful yet subtle book that takes you into the realm of the invisible and the place of absence. Haunting and truly luminous, this is a book I immediately read a second time after finishing, which is something I rarely, if ever, do. I found that there are many layers to this novel, things that on first read you would gloss right over, but which become portentous and striking the second time around. One of the most interesting things about this book is the way we're simultaneously tuned in to Philip the narrator's thought process and also to things outside his adolescent range of vision. Overall, an unusually mature, insightful book that taught me some new and important ways of seeing things. Definitely one of my favorite books in a long while.
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Summary: Don't judge a book by the cover...
Review: Working at a bookstore, I look at hundreds of book covers a day. Occasionally one will grab me as did The Odd Sea. I bought it going solely on the cover and back description and was very disappointed with what I found inbetween. I was hoping this would be a story about a disappearance and perhaps a sordid story of why. Or at least a semblance of a story of why. What I found instead was a boring book that I felt compelled to read because I was SURE that on the next page, something interesting was going to happen. Unfortunately, nothing ever happened. Don't read this book if you want an interesting story. If you want a pretty piece for the bookshelf, go for it, but the book is good for nothing else. Better luck next time...
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Summary: Good enough quick read
Review: Philip is obsessed with his older brother Ethan's disappearance. He finds out things about his brother that he hadn't know before and searches for some truth and reason to his brother's life. Throughout the story he is growing up without even realizing it. Through people that knew his brother he sums up what he knows for sure about his brother and his feelings. The tittle comes from Homer's epic misprounced by his sister. The sister of course had interpreted the story telling as what was happening with Ethan.
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Summary: A rare gem
Review: At the heart of this gem of a novel lies a mystery. Sixteen-year-old Ethan Shumway walks down the driveway one spring morning and simply disappears. His family and friends naturally launch an all-out search for him, but what ensues is less of a "search story" than an exploration of the nature of absence and the way absent people and things are carried with us through our lives. The author's empathy for his characters becomes the conduit through which we explore this problem in various stages of grief ranging from to denial, to rage, to heartache, to resignation, and ultimately to acceptance. The level of acceptance varies from character to character, and author Reiken paints an accurate portrait of the spectrum of responses that result for the many vividly realized characters who fill the pages of this book. Ethan's mother, for instance, becomes so depressed she requires hospitalization. His father has something of a spiritual awakening, in which he channels his grief into the lost art of timber frame house building. The teenage narrator, Philip, seems somehow both wise and unconscious; while he eloquently chronicles the varying reactions to Ethan's disappearance, it's his own unwillingness to face the grisly reality of what probably did happen to his talented older brother that comes to affect the reader most. A bit like the narrator in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of Day, Philip's perspective remains limited, though the reader's perspective with regard to what may or may not have happened to Ethan is anything but limited, becoming almost encyclopedic due to Philip's meticulous, even if at times "unseeing" chronicling. Philip's point of view is not quite unreliable, but more an innocent standpoint that both resonates and haunts with its blind spots. Overall The Odd Sea is a deceptively mature work: striking in its understatement, succinct in its complexity, economical yet rich in its presentation. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: A book you can fall in love with
Review: "The Odd Sea" was handed to me by my son, who is an engineer and rarely has time to read. He loved it and I have to say that I do too. The author's voice is pitch perfect and the story is sad and uplifting at the same time. I had such sympathy for the Shumway family, and such respect for their way of dealing with their lost son, even when their behavior got a bit erratic and destructive. They came out changed but whole, and they all do manage to go on with their lives. To me the mark of a good novel is that it causes you to see certain universal things in ways you never had before. Though the narrator, Philip Shumway, is only a young man, there is great insight in this book. The narrator is also sometimes hilarious, so the story, though emotional, isn't gloomy and depressing.
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Summary: The Odd Sea Rocked!
Review: I loved this book, it was very well written and realistic. It shows an eerie side, and that made the book all the better...I highly recommend it.
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Summary: A must-read
Review: There are very few books out there that I rank as my favorite, but this one is on my list! Wow. When will this author be writing more books? The only thing I didn't like about the book was that we really didn't get a concrete answer as to what REALLY happened to Ethan. Good thing he wasn't murdered--that would have ruined the whole thing.
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