I wish I hadn’t limited myself with a 5 star rating system, for me this book was a stone cold 10 out of 5. Wow, what a wild ride. Not only did I love the book, it also made be feel completely differently about my own writing and how there are no rules if I decide there are none. I will write more on that in another post.

Paragraph two in my reviews is always about the plot. But the plot in this book is so outlandish, so crazy and unbelievable it wouldn’t do it justice to reduce it down to a few lines of summary.

But I have to. So I am going to.

At the very highest level its about a man who goes on a hike in the woods behind his hotel and ends up in a world where there are impossible creatures, where reality doesn’t make sense and where its possible to have a small blue talking crab as a companion. Our protagonist, Ben, just wants to get back to his family and is, eventually, willing to give everything he has to make that happen. He learns a very important lesson early on in his adventure/torment and that is to always, and I mean ALWAYS, stay on the path.

I love the way that Magary doesn’t waste any time or text on explaining why things are happening or how these circumstances have come about, he just throws Ben in and lets him run. The imagination is staggering, but it is written in such a way that it’s not jarring or off putting. Each new and more crazy scenario was dealt with matter of factly and I found myself accepting and dying to know what came next.

About three quarters of the way through I was worried how the book would wrap up, yet even that was done with such precision and with such ease and economy of words that it was actually perfect in the end.

This book is incredible. Buy it, borrow it, steal it, but make sure you read it.

The Hike