Books: The Cabin at the End of the World By Paul Tremblay (2018)

'Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road. One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, "None of what’s going to happen is your fault". Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: "Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world."'

I will say that The Cabin at the End of the World is quite a pager-turner and you need –no, want- to see where this wildly ambitious novel is going. If the blue cabin in the middle of nowhere has to be the focal point between a doomed world and one that continues turning, it does not come better than here. But, then again, the plot –or what you think is the main plot- seems secondary to what is happening, as seven people’s lives are slowing unwinding and you don’t know who will survive or if what Leonard says it true. 

The characterizations are spot on, as Eric and Andrew seem like every normal parent on the planet, reacting not like they’re Dwayne Johnson breaking the laws of science to save their daughter, but scared dads put into a position, a scenario they could never dream about. Even the four strangers, Leonard, Andriane, Sabrina, and Redmond come across as sympathetic, even though you know that their “calling” has the stink of religious overtones to it. But Tremblay does not spend much time obsessing over whether what they’ve come to do come from a “God” or something else entirely.

But it’s Wren whom the readers will love, a vibrant, independent, soon to be 8 year-old, girl who seems more self-aware than most (though it’s not cloying or annoying) her age. She loves Daddy Eric and Daddy Andrew, but she was bothered that they kept most of her adoption aspects secret. Yes, she knows she is of Chinese descent (and her dads struggle with keeping her aware of her heritage, even if she does not really care) and was given up mostly for the cleft palate she was born with, but she hated the idea that they hid away the before pictures of her. She fascinated by them, even if she still seems a bit embarrassed by the fading scar.

But she is the heart of book and well drawn character.

Still, I’m not sure exactly what Paul Tremblay was trying to say here, and we’ve seen many thrillers where parents are painted into a corner, so even the basic plot is not original, but he does go through great pains to make the four intruders seem rational. Almost like he felt he had to make it all ambiguous, that he could not teeter either way. And the structure of the book, its shifting tone and narrators, is hard to get used to –I sometimes felt I didn’t know who was who.

I liked the book, felt it is a great read for a summer day at the beach (but you won’t be swimming) or a lazy Sunday.And at only a surprising 270 pages, you'll not care you did not go swimming or wasted the day.