A thought-provoking story with dark undertones, it demonstrates differences between two groups of people when they collide.


I received a free copy and am leaving a review voluntarily.
Thank you to Booksprout, Hidden Gems Books, and author. ( )

A thought-provoking story with dark undertones, it demonstrates differences between two groups of people when they collide.


I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review. ( )

I don't know what it is like to be a fish, breathing water. Sheldon describes what it is like to live as an aborigine, completely at home in a society and way of life that is completely alien to me, yet completely normal to them. Much like describing what it is to live a life as a fish, from a fish's view point. Sunny, the main character, learns many of the coming of age lessons a young man must go through. As the book progresses, the slavers come with their completely alien way of life, and Sheldon is very articulate in describing this culture clash from the point of view of the aborigine. I am in awe of how well he did it. ( )

This read was quite different from what I'd expected, more of a parable than a plot-driven novel, with a moral that, while no doubt both valid and valuable, was too on the nose. The author should give their readers some credit for being able to figure the message out for themselves, surely there's no need to spell it out as if we were a bunch of six-year-olds. :-/

Set in an unspecified country in a tropical climate - my guess would even be: on another planet, as I can't see how else anyone could maintain a diurnal pattern in which one "fell asleep as the moon approached its zenith" - we are introduced to the protagonist, Sunny, and some other members of his clan, going by the motley array of names like "Aura", "Blue", "Sparrow" and "Hope", of a hunter-gatherer culture, who, despite being noble savages, hold forth at considerable length about, and even have words for, concepts as "egalitarian", "fertilizing" or "degree of insurance".

I did not like how the book started out: Sunny, despite having lived up to adolescence with his tribe, is still so clueless about their ways and values that an elder has to lay everything out for him at great length. That's not story-telling, that's info-dumping under a very thin desguise.

I did not like the writing style, which I found tedious, stilted and repetitive.

I did not like, or felt I could, or even wanted to, relate to any of the characters I came across.

I did not like their sex practices, including the "eyebrow-nibbling" by way of foreplay (ugh!)

I did not like the way this story was going with Sunny making some deal with the devil (and what for why?) - and that's where I had to bail out.

I am sure the author has got a message and the best of intentions, he just did not manage to get them across to me. ( )