Where to even start with this roller coaster.
Arthur Oakes is trapped in a situation where he is being forced to steal rare books from the library at Rackham College, where he works and is a student, by a local drug dealer and her partner in order to protect the life of Arthur’s mother, who is in a nearby prison.
Yeah, that is a lot, and it is merely the setup.
Turning to his closest friends for help: the ambitious Colin Wren, smart townie Gwen Underfoot, brash twins Donna and Donovan McBride, and self-doubting Alison Shiner. Riffing on evidence of a government experiment that seemed to have manifested a semi-malevolent spirit out of just the human consciousness, Colin suggests using a bizarre book called the Crane journal (bound in human skin) to bring forth the dragon mentioned in its pages: King Sorrow.
Long story short, it worked, but, as always, there is a catch.
King Sorrow agrees to take care of Arthur’s little matter, but there is a bigger price to pay. Every year, the six friends have to pick a new sacrifice to satiate King Sorrow’s appetite or the person whose turn it is to pick will be devoured themself.
This novel plays out over almost forty years, and the subplots are what really cement it as a favorite. Joe Hill is so incredibly good at character development, and King Sorrow is incredibly ambitious at developing a whole group of characters over half of a lifetime. More interestingly, we see the dynamic between the core characters grow and change as their deal with the dragon both stresses and/or enhances their lives depending on the individual.
Up until the very end King Sorrow kept me guessing, but this genre-bending novel is definitely on my favorites list now.
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