Book Review | The Ferryman Institute

4:33 PM


I received a copy of The Ferryman Institute by Colin Gigl from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Charlie Dawson is the best Ferryman the Ferryman Institute has on call - he’s helped people cross from life to death and the afterlife for over two-hundred and fifty years. Despite his innate ability to help people make the journey, Charlie has begun to feel disconnected with his work and the world and his role as a Ferryman, which is at odds with his otherwise charming and unflappable self. While out at a job to ferry the soul of a girl, who’s about to commit suicide, Charlie is given the choice to save her life. His decision sets a chain of events in motion that has him questioning the Institute and everything he knows to be true.

Going in to this book, I really didn’t know what to expect. What I got was a fast-paced, adult, action-comedy-fantasy combination that was really fun to read. I complete the book in two days and I was gripped - putting the book down was really difficult.

Charlie is a very charming, very likeable character who the reader sympathises with as he struggles with the dilemma of being a Ferryman but also wanting to help people. He has a network of ‘colleagues’ whom he keeps at arms length in an effort to prevent them from seeing his unease.

Alice I found to be less of an interesting character, and the problems I had with the book were mostly about her storyline and the relatively quick turnaround from her attempted suicide. I did like that Alice’s self-doubts were shared with the reader; she has quite a lot of negative talk that I feel was genuine and real, but there is the hint of her life being saved by a guy, which is not a trope that I enjoy, however I think the rest of the story does make up for that.

I loved the concept of The Ferryman Institute - an organisation built by Charon (the original Ferryman) and Virgil as a way of ensuring the dead do reach their afterlife. There’s a lovely nod to mythology while Colin Gigl has put his own spin on the myth and brought it into the modern day.

Colin Gigl’s writing style is very lyrical and easy to read. Despite some of the content - death, suicide and depression - there is a lightness to the writing that makes you want to keep on reading and find out what’s going to happen next.

The ending does drag out a little bit, but it doesn’t overly affect the main story, and overall I gave this book 4 stars.

Title | The Ferryman Institute
Author | Colin Gigl
Genre | Fantasy
Publication Date | September 27, 2016
Publisher | Gallery Books
Format | eBook

Good Reads Review | The Ferryman Institute

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