This book is a bit baffling.

Most of it is about a Boy On His Island, Doin' His Thing (I suppose), with the mild obsessions with dead creatures and fire and explosives that is so very Pig-Poking-Prince a la my AP Government teacher from 12th grade in the sticks.

But then... there's the other story. Banks manages to convey the terror of being faced with a mightily irrational personality, one who clearly Has Issues, with such mumblity that it gave me vertigo and chills. The fact that he transmits them through the main character, who has an alarmingly casual attitude towards the murder of younger siblings and other family, well... that's ignorable.


The combination of sexism and nonconsensual gender therapy appear to merely be jimmies of irony sprinkled throughout, despite the fact that they motivate the (reasonably executed) ending.