Chike, the main character of this story, is the representation of many real-life thoughts. This boy feels worthless, meaningless like he has no purpose. How do I know this so quickly into the book? The author has a fantastic approach to understanding the main character; through the other character’s actions. Although this story is perceived in the first-person point of view, the beginning of the story displays a scene of his grandma foul-mouthing him for his uselessness.
This starting point of the novel helped emerge the main idea of the storyline, which is the land of the Dead. The concept of reaching this place is clearly put, which makes the visualization appeal much more entertaining. I will not say much about the land and world development of it, you have to read this book to find out. I am not one to provide spoilers… that spoil the fun! I definitely recommend this book though if you are into the division of universes and cross-worlds.
I appreciate the author’s writing style of sentence structure. There is a great variety of sentence lengths, balanced out perfectly. The author also avoids wordiness when describing a character, object, or place, but still is able to define and explain them comprehensibly.
Chike’s journey through the land of the dead is a complex one, with many obstacles and “guardians” through the way. My personal favorite obstacle was the one involving seaweed and large amounts of water used as weapons. Although it is an obstacle for Chike, it was a very exhilarating scene composed of contraptions derived from nature in a new way I’d never considered possible.
The theme of this story is easily accessible through surface-level reading, but anyone who reads this book will want to dig deeper. Self-discovery, the main theme which I came upon while reading, is very well executed through the plot and hardships faced by Chike. From ‘the voice’, to the different guardians, and all the obstacles in the land of the dead, these physical barriers to knowing and developing his self-identity and purpose are striking.
There are so many details about this book I want to go more in-depth on and ramble about both the action-packed and sentimental scenes conclusively, but I am strictly avoiding spoilers in all of my book analysis’. Just the synopsis of ‘The Wrong Turn’ lured me in, so hopefully, that on top of this post captivates you as well!
