So I confess, Grim is not a book I would have picked on my own had it not been for the fact that I was sent an unsolicited copy of this by Scholastic Canada (thanks!). But I am glad I read it because it is just so different from my usual choice in books. While it is true that the novel has paranormal elements to it, the main character is not a young adult but a mother who has been separated from her three children by a being (I can’t call him a man since he is not human) who causes her accident to fulfill his own need.The physical novel is a beauty to behold. I must say that Scholastic books are all physically well crafted; the pages are well laid out, the fonts easy on the eyes and everything is just aesthetically pleasing. The novel itself is haunting, atmospheric and lyrical. At first I wasn’t too certain that the juxtaposition of what was so mundane and the paranormal would work for me but Waggener is gifted at portraying the grief of the children left behind and this grief bounces off the yearning of their mother who glimpses them every so often. It creates a bridge, slight though it may be, from the underworld to ours.I did feel that the underworld that Erika exists in required a lot more explicit building than it got. I wanted to know more about it and I somehow wish that Waggener had spent more time on it than she did. It was just so fascinating reading about the hierarchy, the complicated relationships and the dynamics between the many different people present in that world.
