Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Review: Oooeelie by Kenneth Crowe

Oooeelie by Kenneth Crowe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Intriguing and complex...

Oooeelie, a superior being who crash lands on earth tens of thousands of years ago in mankind's infancy, is stranded. Lonely, he mentally connects with a human girl to form a bridge between himself and her tribe. In the process, she speaks the very first fully formed word, Oooeelie.

Fast forward to modern day New York, the original Oooeelie is long dead. However, he isn't gone. Joanna, a dissatisfied woman is plagued by recurring dreams that feature strange cave paintings, a shaman and her dog, Oooeelie. Through chance, she comes across a picture in an old book that exactly matches her dreams and tracks its origins to an address in the city. What she doesn't know is that the building hosts the offices of the Order of Man, an organization whose members have systematically tracked down and destroyed Oooeelies throughout history.

Overall, I loved the character development, the intrigue, the mystery of Oooeelie throughout the ages and the motivations of the antagonistic secret society bent on destroying the dog who taught humans to speak. I also enjoyed how the author was able to change my allegiance from Joanna to her husband, almost without me realizing it.

The only thing I didn't like was that the story reads like a history book (albeit an interesting one) in places. It is also important to note that the book contains adult content such as sexual encounters (explicit, but short), profanity, and violent clashes between Oooeelie and those who would destroy him. 

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