The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
on November 7, 2006
Genres: Fiction / Coming of Age, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General, Fiction / Thrillers / General
Pages: 352
Format: Audiobook, Paperback
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High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a world that is a strange reflection of his own, populated by heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book, The Book of Lost Things.
I loved the premise of this book and the elements of the dark, twisted fairytales. But it was a slog to get through. The entire book was slow except for a few instances that were interesting and paced well. There was entirely too much exposition, and I found myself skipping paragraphs and pages without losing anything from the plot. I disliked the lack of strong, interesting, and well-written female characters as well. There were also a couple of instances where the author delved into a character’s background and included a lot of gory details, but they weren’t relevant to the story.
I had to give this novel two stars. It was a little too much young adult for me. Maybe if I was a teenager. Okay, it’s not a bad story. It had its moments. But, it lost me when it started twisting fairy tales to be all sorts of clever. Snow White as a hefty, insult laden uber wench? yeah. whatever. The story outside of these sidebars is actually quite interesting, a boy’s journey in a strange land, grieving over his dead mom, etc… but I still found myself wondering what those dudes that did the Narnia films could make out of it.
English (US) · 