Boo's Reviews| "For in every adult there dwells the child that was..."

"...and in every child there lies the adult that will be."

Afternoon my fellow Geekoids!

This book was so delicious that I actually want to talk about it properly with possible spoilers so if you haven't read it... GO. Now. Come back when you're done and we can have a lovely time exploring the intricacies of a book that was so epic, it feels like I just watched the Imax film.

Title: The Book of Lost Things
Author: John Connolly
Published: 2006

This is a book for book lovers. Set during WWII, the basic premise is that a young boy starts to hear books talking to him after he suffers the tragic loss of his mother, due to illness.

These voices lead him to the discovery of a different world in his back garden where fairy tales are true. He is advised to visit the elusive King, keeper of "The Book of Lost Things", to see if his book holds any clue as to how he can get back home.

David, the protagonist, is a boy who has lost his mother. The writer makes it obvious, from the outset, that David has a few deep-seated issues. Namely OCD, post-traumatic stress and jealousy. The OCD is brought on by the belief that certain ways of doing things will bring him "good luck" and save his mother from her illness. When this doesn't work, David appears to suffer a sort of post-traumatic stress (in a time where such "sensitivities" were seldom understood). It is around this time that he starts to hear his books talking to him.

When his father, who is apparently away a lot working for GCHQ (to crack the Enigma maybe?), moves them into his girlfriend's house and has a new baby with her, David starts to feel jealous of the newborn.

After what seems like quite a lot of build-up, David discovers a certain place in the garden which allows him to enter into another land Narnia-stylee. Fom here on it all gets very fantastical and scary and weird.

He finds himself in a wood. Nothing too scary about woods right? Only slightly alarming thing at this point is that he doesn't appear to be able to turn around and get back out the way he came in. Obviusly us reader's saw this coming, and that is why we are never so foolish as to wander into other worlds without first checking that we can get in and out. Foolish child! Anyway, not to worry because he meets a wood cutter who acts all gruff and makes him run with him out of the forest (yeah that's right sorry, it's not a wood, it's a forest - fairy tales have forests not woods. We can blame the Brothers Grimm for that). The reason they are running, w discover is because the forest is full of scary things, Including horrible werewoleves, women hunters that butcher children, trolls and the seriously creepy "Crooked Man".

Portrayal of The Crooked Man from The Book of Lost Things by erinevenight on deviantart.com http://erinevenight.deviantart.com

The Wood Cutter tells him a story and then agrees to help him find his way out of the forest. He does as promised but doesn't manage to take David any further than the canyon at the edge of the forest. David crosses over the canyon via a suitably perilous bridge all by himself. He tries to follow a road that he thinks will take him to see the king. He gets lost and nearly killed a few more times on the way until he eventually meets a knight in shining armour.

The knight is on a mission, of course, to rescue or else find what became of a fellow knight and "dear friend" (nudge, wink) who went to kill a witch or something. He promises to help David - if David will first accompany him on his mission. David agrees and the mission turns out to be far more complicated and deadly than either of them had anticipated.

Eventually, after defeating a dreadful monster and breaking into a well defended, moving, castle, the Knight and Boy err...part ways. Leaving David and, handily, the Knight's horse to complete their journey to the King alone *sob*.

Now I'm not gonna lie, this summary is pretty bloody long and, as you can imagine, so is the book. It is by no means a light read. However, the reason that I found it so fantastic was the sheer detail in the fairy tale crossovers. It truly felt like I was living a half-life while I read this. I barely ate or slept. I felt like I was on David's journey with him and oh how I cried. It's not exactly full of belly laughs but there are a few feel good moments and the ending is really bittersweet.

I love, Love, LOVE the characters. Connolly proves himself to be well versed in fairy tales and the intangible magical nature of them. He uses his knowledge to create characters that are recognisable to all of us as, for example: the woodcutter, the big bad wolf, Rumplestiltskin, the Knight in Shining Armour, etc. etc. Yet, Connolly makes these incarnations completely his own with the twisting of small details and the development of richer personalities from those well-known stereotypes.

One of the main themes is that books are alive; that they want, and are intended to, be read by someone. This book is exactly that, a magical story that wants to be read.

Stylistically perfect and literally fantastic.

'Til next time Bookwormies...

Becky