Hard to gather my thoughts on this very confusing book.

This was really weird. The fact that it was in prose made it easy to read but there was really no plot. I know what it was supposed to be. But it was still confusing

The author teaches creative writing at various universities and has written a very creative short novel about a sixteen-year-old boy, the only child of Irish immigrants who struggles to fit in. One day he starts hearing a girl’s voice in his head and eventually he even begins to see her. Declan discovers he is falling in love with this girl, even though he is not even certain that she is real. She gives him visions of a mountain, a beach and people he has never encountered and he comes to believe he must locate these places and go there, hoping to meet her.

This is a story of a quest to find true love, in whatever form it may arise and will bring out the romantic in the most cynical individual. The unusual way of writing the story in verse is a kind of visual map for the reader to travel into the world of fiction. Being an only child of immigrants myself, I really identified with Declan’s search for his roots, to understand the voice of the past and to try to make sense of all that had happened to him and all that was yet to come.

Saphira

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I've been very happy with books written in verse but this one didn't do it for me. I never felt invested in the main character because there wasn't enough time to get to know him before the story kicked off. It's still a good quick read since it only took me 1.5 hours to finish.

Declan is just an average teenage boy until he starts hearing the voice of a girl inside his head. He doesn’t believe she is a figment of his imagination, though. When he closes his eyes … he sees her. Through their conversations and visions she shares, he feels the need to go to Ireland and find her. Can Declan convince his parents to let him travel to his crazy Uncle Seamus? Will he discover the mystery behind this voice in his head?

Thin Places is a stand-alone novel in verse. The book is very short, even for its format, and most readers will finish it in about an hour. Choyce gives just enough background about Ireland’s history and mysteries to pull the reader in and gives them a reason to keep going. The “thin places” are a tantalizing idea that connects Declan to his family’s ancestral Ireland. Thin Places is a very quick read and it is also enjoyable.

Thin Places is a modern day fairy tale.

Declan always heard voices growing up but they also always sounded like him. His imaginary friends drove his dad crazy. At 16, a new voice has come calling and she most definitely does not sound like Declan. Rebecca tells Declan that she needs his help. Shows him what she looks like and puts images in his mind of places important to her. Through some research and a bit of help from his uncle, Delcan figures out Rebecca is somewhere in Ireland and convinces his dad to let him go. But where in Ireland? She doesn’t turn up on the mountain or any of the beaches he searches.

A story that leaves you feeling like you’re wandering through the mist even after everything is explained, perhaps like walking in your own neighbourhood in the fog. It’s all there but so deliciously mysterious. A story of magic and gentle heroism. The chosen format – poems – only strengthens this fuzziness. It allows us to fade in and out on the important bits and gloss over the rest.

One day, Declan Lynch, a restless teenager, starts hearing a girl's voice inside his head. Eventually, he even begins to see her. Though he's not certain the girl, Rebecca, is real, Declan finds himself falling for her. She shows him visions of places and people he has never seen -- places he feels compelled to find in hopes of meeting her.

His quest takes him to County Sligo, Ireland, and its "thin places," spots where the earth and the spirit world seem almost to touch. His slightly crazy Uncle Seamus takes him in, as Declan's search has him wondering which world he belongs to -- his or the one belonging to a girl who might not even be real.

I'm a sucker for anything with Celtic ties, or Irish, or Scottish. And myth. And this blended things so well. It's short, a novella, really, and it read quick. And it has to do with one of my favorite mythological creatures. And I won't give it away, but I recommend it to anyone who likes a good mystery with a little bit of the supernatural.

Declan is sixteen, awkward and doesn't fit in at school. His parents are originally from Ireland. His father sees things in black 'n white and his mother is more open and spiritual.

One day Declan starts hearing the voice of Rebecca inside his head and when he closes his eyes, she is able to show him visions. He is determined to find and meet her. Once he realizes she is in Ireland, he convinces his parents to let him go there and stay with his Uncle Seamus. What they don't know is that he intents to search for Rebecca.

According to Rebecca, "thin places" are "where they say the spirit world and the physical world are close together. Sacred places and ancient burial sites."

I don't usually read books like this but I'd read and enjoyed a book by this author years ago. Plus he's a Canadian from Nova Scotia (like me).

It took me a while to get used to the writing style but once I caught the rhythm, it was fine.

It was an interesting story and it was fun to step out of my comfort zone. It's not a deep story and is a quick read. You'll especially like it if you enjoy reading stories about selkies, mystical Ireland, etc.

Unfortunately all I can really say is this book was not at all what I had expected had I known I wouldn't have tried to read it I'm glad I gave it a shot but plain and simple this wasn't for me.

This was an unusual book. It read like this:

aNd tHere
WaS a loT
oF
annOying ups and downs

Which I just could not get used to. The story itself wasn't bad, just odd.

I am having a lot of trouble gathering together my thoughts on this book. A novel in verse, this is a short and poetic read in a beautiful setting. However, though verse novels always tend to be quicker reads, this one was way too short, in my opinion. So short, that I had absolutely no time to connect with the characters or the plot before it was finished. Though I fluidly sped through it, I never had a chance to involve myself in it. This is what makes voicing my thoughts particularly difficult—this novel left me with a sense of confusion and incompleteness.

This novel had an intriguing and eye-catching plot to me for a number of reasons. We follow a young boy named Declan Lynch, who is no stranger to hearing voices in his head. For the first sixteen years of his life, those voices took on the form of characters, involving themselves in his decision-making and all he did. Despite this, these characters still sounded like his own internal voice, allowing him to retain some sort of connection with reality.

One day, however, this changes when he begins to not only hear the voice of a girl named Rebecca, but is able to see her materialize in his head. The strong connection he immediately feels to Rebecca sends him on a journey to County Sligo, Ireland. Declan is thrust into the arms of his estranged Uncle Seamus, as he attempts to locate Ireland’s “thin places”—where the world of the living is believed to meet that of the deceased—and unite with this mysterious girl.

I was expecting this to be a sweeping journey in a beautiful country as a young boy answers a calling in himself to uncover a hidden portion of family history and discover who he is—where he fits into the world—in the process. What I actually found was that over half the book had flown by before Declan even arrived in Ireland to begin his quest to find Rebecca. This left very little time for what I thought would be—and what was represented as—the main plot point in the narrative, given the synopsis.

The characters were incredibly one-dimensional, as the length of this novel gave them little to no room to be developed. I absolutely could not connect with a single one of them, simply because there was no time. The narrative barely skimmed the surface of key elements such as characterization and world-building. It is driven much less by the characters and descriptions and much more by dialogue, which did not serve this novel well. Instead, it heavily weighed the text down.

On top of everything, this novel was insta-love central, aggravated immensely by the length of the narrative. This is never usually a good thing to have in a story—it is definitely one of those overused and highly disliked tropes in writing. The romance feels like it is just haphazardly shoved into the plotline. From the first second that Declan sees Rebecca in his mind, he instantly falls in love with her, and this takes up a huge portion of his thoughts for most of the novel. They haven’t met, he has no idea whether she is even real or not, and yet she is automatically the love of his life. This “romance” took over the majority of the narrative.

On a slightly more positive note, despite my problems with the plot and characters, the writing was surprisingly delightful in some ways. While there were some problems, the overall prose could be quite beautiful.

The only complaint I had when it came to the writing aspect of the novel was the fact that the layout of the verses—a key and very compelling point in a verse novel—felt very random and disjointed. Part of the art of a verse novel is to arrange the lines of text and breaks in those lines so that they add to the tone and significance of the plot. So not only does the writing itself need to be beautiful, but that layout has to be meaningful as well—preferably not feeling like a hasty jumbling of words.

In the end, I unfortunately did not particularly enjoy this story as a whole. It left me feeling extraordinarily unsatisfied and as if I had missed a huge chunk of plot that should have been there. I just needed more from this book and it never delivered. It was a nice, quick read that definitely staves off any sort of reading slump, but that was one of the only positives I felt by finishing this novel.

This was a quick read because it was written in verse. It was unusual but interesting. I liked the references to the folk lore of Ireland and the love story weaved between the stanzas. I highly recommend for those who love to read poetry.

One day, Declan Lynch, a regular teenager, starts hearing a girl’s voice inside his head. Eventually, he even begins to see her. Though he’s not certain the girl, Rebecca, is real, Declan finds himself falling for her. She shows him visions of places and people he has never seen — places he feels compelled to find in hopes of meeting her. His quest takes him to County Sligo, Ireland, and its “thin places,” spots where the earth and the spirit world seem almost to touch. His slightly crazy Uncle Seamus takes him in, as Declan’s search has him wondering which world he belongs in — his, or the one belonging to a girl who might not even be real.

The main character, Declan Lynch is a 16 year old of Irish decent who while living in the US starts hearing the voice of a girl, Rebecca, in his head. And eventually he can also see her as well. Rebecca begins showing him things such as beaches, mountains and other places and people that he has never before seen. Declan begins to fall in love with Rebecca even though he is not sure she is real or what she actually is. Declan comes to believe that he must find these places and people that Rebecca has shown him, hoping that will bring him to her.

This is the first verse novel that I have read in quite a while and although I find it a bit hard to read at times, I did enjoy this book. It is fairly short at 170 pages and because of the style, there are some pages that don’t contain a great deal of text. I can’t say that I really connected with Declan very much as a character. That may be because he is a 16 year old boy or because I am not used to reading shorter novels where we don’t get much time to get to know the character. I did find the story to be quite interesting and different from what I normally read. And there is a bit of Celtic folklore that made the story a more interesting. I did really enjoy the ending of this book and liked how things ended between Declan and Rebecca. Overall, a quick read with an interesting style of writing and an engaging story mixed with folklore and mythology.

Thank you to the publisher, Dundurn, for sending me an advanced reading copy of this book.

I did not request this book, I clicked on a link on twitter to see more information but not I find it in my download list. Sorry I do not think this book is a good fit for me.

Thanks for Netgalley and respective publishers.

Another fantasy book.
It was good and easy read.
I've got this book today and finished in one hour.
It describes a boy story which was attracted to selkie girl.
Boy completely indulged in whole history and story of girl.
I think this book could be more better.
No offence.


Good one.

I am a huge fan of books in verse, so I was excited to read an MG/YA Fantasy in this style.

I was hugely disappointed in this book. It's billed as "haunting verse", but this book barely felt like poetry. The line breaks carried little weight and felt random and unplanned. The poet missed opportunities for description and poetic insight, opting instead for a narrative heavily driven by dialogue.

Instalove ran rampant and even at the end, character motivations made little sense. I wanted so much more from this book.