review #3: adventure beckons!

In 286 pages, Yann Martel creates a world. You enter at first as an onlooker, and a skeptical one at that. A boy who practices three religions? Please. A tiger on a lifeboat? Please. Cutesy story, I'm sure. Would make a nice picture book.

And then suddenly you're on that lifeboat with Pi, braving heaven and hell. With the adventurous magic of the fantastics of childhood bedtime stories, this story captivates mind and heart, clenching them, refusing release until it has squeezed every last voice of skepticism, of "being an adult" from you.

And without warning, you are free again, back in the realm of "Reality." And in that realm, your imagination, your invention, your Faith is held in the balance, held up to the light.

This is a story to make you believe in God.

This is a story I will be thinking about for many, many days.