Sharing -A Book Review

 "Sharing" is a self-published book by Miracle Jones.  Ordinarily I would never have bothered with a self-published book, but a mention from  Dear Author, was enough to make me curious.  So curious in fact, I paid the five bucks required, and bought it.  And read it in one sitting, sacrificing valuable sleep time to finish it.  Yes.  It is that good.

It’s difficult to give a synopsis of this book without massive spoilers.  So if you are at all interested in reading a fantasy involving orphans, an eloquent cockroach, a vast sucking hole and a kitten that’s really an evil fungus –like planet, DO NOT read the following synopsis.  One of the chief pleasures of this book is the way the author keeps the reader guessing all along the way until the end and I fear that a too detailed synopsis will ruin the surprises in store, but here goes anyway.

Charlotte and five others are taken from their orphanage by an Indrik, a creature that looks like a “combination of a bull, a preying mantis, and a fashion model.” He deposits them on a world comprised of orange sand, twisted trees and a huge continuously sucking hole.  Except for a diner and a befouled cathedral with cryptic scenes painted on the walls, the world contains nothing else. The children are required to cook and clean for the Indrik with horrendous consequences for those who fail to obey the creature’s commands. 

Through a gruesome series of occurrences, Charlotte finds herself alone.  Desperate to escape, she trains her body so that she may one day kill the Indrik.  But she doesn’t know where she is, or what this world is, or its rules or anything of help. All she knows is that if she fails in anyway to satisfy the Indrik, she will be killed and eaten.   The Indrik brings her dead animals from many different worlds to cook and eat. One day, she opens a sack of dead cockroaches, only to find one left alive.  His name is Asfodel and he is the most literate, educated cockroach she has ever encountered.  She doesn’t kill him, and he becomes her guide in this world. It is he, who teaches Charlotte to Share. 

The Nested Worlds (as Asfodel refers to them) are built on several powers, of which Sharing is one of them.  Sharing is mind to mind communication.  One who has truly mastered sharing can see into another’s mind and even see another’s soul. Asfodel trains Charlotte to share, so that she may defeat the Indrik and escape from this world.

But if Charlotte is truly to escape, she must understand the nature of her existence and this will lead her to a deeper understanding of her sworn enemy, an understanding so profound, it might very well destroy her soul.

I have never read anything like this book before.  The sheer weirdness of the world, the absolute villainy of the Indrik and Charlotte’s defiance of the cruelty of her existence as  well as the steller writing, make for a compelling reading experience.  I felt for Charlotte and rooted for her to escape.  I fell in love with Asfodel- the eloquent cockroach who is, as he puts it, really a fairy.  And the kitten planet cracked me up on more than one occasion.  But for all the strangeness of the book, I never felt as if the characters, even the bizarre ones, were anything less than relatable and human,  Even the Indrik, surely one of the worst villains presented in fantasy literature becomes, if not sympathetic, perhaps understandable.  I even pitied him a little.  And that’s saying something.

I will definitely read the next book in the series. As well as anything else this author has written. By far, the best fantasy I have read in a long, long time.  J.K Rowling, eat your heart out.

 I