EricaO

I was zipping along with this book, tension building, mysteries abounding and then suddenly! I got caught up on Lloyd.
I know why he was there but I don't think I ever understood why he stayed and that kept buzzing around in the back of my mind. Why is he still there? Why?

I liked that Jake's present and past were intermixed but as a listener, I was confused by this because it took awhile to figure out which span of time I was in when they changed, as there were no immediate cues.

The reader was really good with both the Aussies and the Brits, as well as the birds. I liked her. But she also may have made it a little more difficult for me to understand what was going on; I may have followed better had I been reading the words.

The environments were well-described without wasting tons of description. Dry, bleak, deserty areas and cold, rainy, green spots. Seasides and interiors.

I loved that a question would be raised - scars on Jake's back? How'd they get there? Who is this Otto and why is she with him? What about the best friend? and then were slowly answered in a backward fashion. Her story had to keep rewinding to get there.
What a shitty life she's lead. What a different person she is in her farmhouse with her sheep on her little island in the sea. She's tough and she's paranoid and she might be having a mental breakdown.
At the same time, she might be having an attack of the Hooge Poomah.
For a while, I wondered if Lloyd was going to turn out to be a werewolf.

I just kept guessing, running back and forth between logic and supernatural, from vengeful characters from Jake's past to creepy creatures from the briny depths.

And then there was the ending. I was all wrapped up in the present, in the past, not in Lloyd because I don't understand why he was still there, but in everything else and it ended. All done.
I was surprised.

If I had to take a stab at it for my English teacher, I would say the last two bits, present and far past...or the beginning of the whole story? They are two opposite points, these sections, and if I were forced to say something about it, I would say that they mirrored each other. She felt safe back before all the hell happened to her, safe with her family, with the familiarity of where she was, where nothing would ever change...until it did. That was probably the last time she felt like that. And at the touch of another's hand while staring down the sheep-shredding beast, maybe Jake once again felt safe, felt part of something, felt not-alone.
And maybe I am 100% full of crap.
Maybe Lloyd really was a werewolf.