The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another incredible novel from Paul Tremblay, an author whose talents only seem to grow with each subsequent book! CABIN is a short novel that reads very quickly; Tremblay doesn’t waste any time before putting his characters into their impossible plight. But the simplicity of the plot is deceptive. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface, onion-like layers that reveal deeper questions, such as whether essentially decent people can still do something terrible if they think they have to. There’s an old saying that villains see themselves as the heroes of their stories, and while that is certainly in play here, even that layer can be pulled away to reveal new, deeper questions like: Who are we when we abdicate control of our lives and actions to another, presumably higher power? Can we ever truly know how our actions affect everyone else? How far do those ramifications spread, like ripples in a pond? Is there a higher power out there, and is it better than us or worse? There’s a reason Tremblay is one of my favorite contemporary authors, one whose work I always read as soon as it comes out. He’s an exceptional writer with big, bold ideas. THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD fulfills the promise of his previous novels while also raising the stakes for whatever he writes next.
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