a review: ocean at the end of the line by neil gaiman

setting: sussex, england

characters:

• the hempstock ladies - old mrs. hempstock /gran (the gradma) ; ginnie hempstock (lettie's mom); lettie hempstock, youngest hempstock

• main character, the boy 

the main character of the story came back to his hometown to attend a funeral and that's when he went back in time as a little boy in sussex, england.

his mother decided to accept tenants to their family home to get by financially which was to his dismay because he dislikes strangers invading his attick room. they once had this opal miner tenant who accidentally ran over the his kitten.

the opal miner was found dead in a car close to the hempstock's farm down the road. while the police investigate the crime scene, lettie, the little hempstock, approached the boy to veer him away from the scene. 

the hempstock ladies claimed that all the hempstock men already left the family which left him bewildered. 

along came ursula moncton, the newest tenant at his house. i'm sure that the boy's name was ever mentioned in the book but i can't recall which chapter it was so i guess i'll just suit myself calling him the boy geez. he hated ursula but his family adored him. ursula became his arch enemy. 

the story was strange i think cuz the hempstock's had powers of some sort. ursula happened to be his enemy and eventually lured his father. she almost drove him out of his own home until lettie and family interfered. ursula is a witch of some sort i think as well because she can fly and bully the poor little boy.

ursula was vanquished by the hempstocks and he was safe again except for the vermits (flock of raven black birds) chasing him and claiming that they need 'something' that belongs to them from the boy. lettie defended him and almost died from the battle with the vermits. the hempstock women made it appear that lettie is bound to australia for good, returned the boy to his family and they never saw each other again until he grew up. 

lettie beforehand taugh him that the pond at the farmhouse is an ocean which i think she meant figuratively. 

moving on, lettie never showed up after the night that she almost died until the day the boy, who's now a grown man paid his childhood home a visit and noticed then that ginnie hempstock, lettie's mom, did not age. 

the end.

the book is profound because there's this intrinsic meaning to everything. the story is hard to decipher really because it's not superficial. NOT your mediocre chidren's book. expand your horizon :)