Another book translated to English from the couple who wrote Vita Nostra. This was listed as a sequel to that, but it isn’t. It’s got some of the same qualities of metaphysics fiction but it doesn’t seem to have a direct connection to Vita.

This also denies categorization, too. It feels a lot like a weird, dark fairy tale with surrealistic and even some absurdist elements put in the mix. Every character feels like something a bit askew, yet cast in a stark light.

An 11 year old-ish girl is saved by a DJ in the heat of the night from ruffians and their dog. He, a completely inept care giver and toxic personality, she something undeniably otherworldly. Her only possession is a teddy bear that may or may not have a creature attached to it. She claims to be from another world, here on a mission: To find her brother, fallen from this place as well. Only he is sort of reincarnated, if she’s telling the truth, anyway, and so doesn’t remember who he is or why he chose to come to this existence.

What follows are many questions, and a tug of war playing out in our main characters head, the DJ. Is the girl making this up? Can the strange things he’s seen be explained away? Things keep getting not only more uncanny, seemingly, but also deadly. Trouble dogs this girl.

This is certainly a story about a man learning something, as Gaiman would put it. But the realism in it is not what I expected. The DJ is legitimately a pretty terrible guy. He hits the girl a couple times. He’s not overly bright, and because we follow him in the story, the prose reflect that. They’re not as rich and detailed as Vita Nostra. It’s a straight forward affair, for the most part. He’s basically a man child that hates being inconvenienced and thinks he’s suffering for his good deed; though for her part, she’s the ideal roommate.

Most often kind and acting well beyond her years. She neither falls into the tropey roll of parenting him or the damsel in distress. She’s has a single minded nature to succeed at her mission, but is easy to empathize and like.

It’s almost a fairytale about a man who helps a child; almost a tale of a man who takes in something dark that isn’t a child; almost the story of a man who thinks he’s got a good life, but learns he’s missing something important. But never quite anything I’ve read before, which makes it continually compelling and impossible to anticipate while reading.

There is a side character who is like the DJs friend, but isn’t. Provides him security but also is a mobster and a wild card who takes a weird interest in the strange happenings. There’s the notion that the uncanny is hypnosis sometimes too, and so a creature who comes to confer with the girl, who seems like something straight of a fairy tale, may instead be something like a hallucination.

Ultimately, you’ll have to decide for yourself what’s real. I like that there is again, some subjectivity in the ending. I would have even liked more though, making it harder to decide which camp you belong to. It’s interesting to read something that would initially seem to want to convey strong themes and be proverbial or a metaphor, as so often fantasy is, but just instead be an off kilter thing that feels like it doesn’t care whether you like it or not.

While there were some moments that seemed off and some that were perhaps cultural subtext, I really quite enjoyed how different it was. It clips along nicely and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. It often begs larger questions. When it gets into musicality and creativity, it’s even more interesting.