Rating: 2/5
At first, Michael was rather excited to be moving house. His father said they would fix up the place and kept going on about the lawn he was going to put into the garden, and the pond and the trees and the flowerbeds. But then everything goes horribly wrong. Michael’s baby sister arrives too early and Mum has to spend endless days with her in the hospital. She is amid danger of death. The only thing that can cheer up Michael is a little girl who lives nextdoor: Mina.
Mina takes Michael’s mind off the baby by getting him involved in art and modelling and playing outside. She shows him the birds and the chicks and everything else she is interested in. And then something strange happens. Something beautiful, yet something utterly odd.
Skellig.
What is he? A beast? A bird? Why would a beast be in Michael’s garage? How is it possible to have a six-foot bird, withered and dying, in a black suit and shoes, and so man-like? With a human face? It’s not some Egyptian myth. It’s really there. It really, really is. Or so, Michael thinks…
My sister recommended this book to me and said it was absolutely amazing, but I think it was just OK. At times it got very boring, and the sentences seemed to be a maximum of five words long. However, at other times, it was very interesting and well-written. Here is a middling paragraph of the book:
‘We were right inside the roof. It was a wide room with a sloping ceiling. The floorboards were split and uneven. Plaster had fallen from the walls. … Glass was scattered on the floor below the window.’
Overall the book was a bit boring. I would recommend it to people who like short sentences and descriptions that tell you exactly what you think.