Title: Grayland
Pages: 264
Genre: NA, General Fiction
Publisher: Merchant Blue Publishing
Date Published: September 28, 2015
Format: Kindle edition
Source: Amazon
Read: September 30, 2015-January 2, 2016
Synopsis:
After her sister’s suicide, Marina Magaña struggles to get through each day. Stuck in a dead-end job, stalled out of college, and falling out with friends and family, her world is stagnating, drained of color. She’s lost and doesn’t know where her life is headed.
One day she finds a mysterious locket, and soon after, a mysterious figure—the gray man—appears. Marina doesn’t know what to make of the strange events that follow, but she comes to understand that the gray man is more powerful than she could ever have imagined.
In a tale touched by traumatic loss, painful self-discovery, and lyrical beauty, Marina must find out if she has what it takes to move on before it’s too late: before she, or someone she loves, gets caught between her mistakes and the power of the gray man.
Review
I could connect to her on some level, not only because she is hispanic*, but because I too have felt like my life is at this stalled point where I don't know how to move forward. It's scary because you're supposed to know what you want to do and when and where. You're supposed to enjoy life, but you don't know how. So I could understand Maddie on that depressed level she lives in, and also on being the sister of a sibling who has been molested.
All throughout the story though, I had one reoccurring question: Who is the gray man? While I never do get a response to that question, I do think he stands as a sort of symbol of depression and a representation of wishes we ask life to grant us. Like do-overs. I think he is freaky though, along with that creepy locket Marina finds that haunts her when she tries to get rid of it.
This gave me a lot to think about in regards to how people deal with life and grief, but more especially about depression. It made me reflect on my own life.
4 Platypires.