Atmosphere is well done, if dark and grim. Characterization is interesting. David is very real, as layered as one can possibly be at that age, struggling with pride, isolation, independence, and a great deal of loss. Most of the rest of the characters exist as they do in fairy tales, that is to say, as archetypes. There is an off-note encounter with the Seven Dwarves, who have become communists; an anomaly in that they are supposed to be humorous. It's also worth nothing that the Gallant Knight is in love with a man, and while a man of honor, is also a doomed, tragic figure.

They ate her," said Brother Number One. "With porridge. That's what 'ran away and was never seen again' means in these parts. It means 'eaten.'" New York Times bestselling author John Connolly's unique imagination takes readers through the end of innocence into adulthood and beyond in this dark and triumphantly creative novel of grief and loss, loyalty and love, and the redemptive power of stories. The London Blitz, as it was called, was Nazi Germany’s bombing of British cities in later 1940 through the spring of 1941. Although London was the central target, many other cities with munitions factories and storage facilities were also targeted. Learn more about the Blitz by visiting http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/blitz_01.shtml .I guess, I didn't write a review of this the first time I read it. The Book of Lost Things is a dark fantasy and a coming-of-age tale about a boy who has lost his mother to cancer. He is feeling even worse after her death, because his father falls in love and marries a new woman quite soon after and has a baby boy. He is feeling unloved and unwanted and begins to hear and see things that others can't that are coming from the books in his room.

The characters : I loved all the characters in this book, they seemed so real. and i absolutely ADORED David, all his flaws made him more relatable and more human, in this story I believe we follow him in a journey of finding himself rather than finding his mother . David had an opportunity to examine its face as it hovered: it resembled a woman's but was longer and thinner, with a lipless mouth that left its sharp teeth permanently exposed. Now those teeth tore into its prey, ripping great chunks of bloody fur from its body as it fed."Throughout the time that David lives in the imaginary world, his dreams are influenced by fairy tales, as well as the real-world personal and cultural tragedies that he came from. While David’s dead mother certainly plays a large role, which aspects of his life have a great impact on his dream world? Discuss the interaction of the real world and the imagined. What conflicts arise and how does David’s dream deal with these conflicts? Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, books had no real existence in our world. Like seeds in the beak of a bird waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being. they lie dormant hoping for the chance to emerge.They want us to give them life.” So central to the novel is the importance of reading and the strong sense of escapism books can bring us. Whilst David, essentially, gets lost in his own world of books and ideas, it’s the act of reading that helped him come to terms with the loss of his mother. His adventure, enacted through stories and the characters he has read about, becomes a means for him to grow as a person and to learn about decency. Fairy tales are often moralistic, and David’s tale is no different.

In his dreams and around the house, David began seeing a figure of a man with distinct, odd features. Drawing closer and closer to him, waiting in the shadows, was the Crooked Man. Trust me, after reading this book, the above image of a sadistic, powerful, child-slaughtering MOFO will forever displace your previous perception of old Rumpy being nothing more than a half pint, mischievous prankster with ethical deficiencies… John Connolly is best known as a respected writer of an excellent detective series. his strengths have been widely reported: gorgeously dark and lush descriptive skills, a sensitive portrayal of private eye Charlie Parker - an unusually tormented protagonist (tragic even for a genre noted for its sad, sad heroes), and a unsettling ability to mix the prosaic with the supernatural to startling effect. in this book, Connolly takes each of those gifts and streamlines them in a way that is appropriate for the reader of young adult or even children's literature - although this novel is very clearly an Adult Fairy Tale. the result is pleasingly distinctive. there are many scenes that are striking in their psychosocial nuance, their foreboding atmosphere, their ability to evoke that wonderfully shivery feeling of fearful anticipation. my favorite passage happens early on: David's daunting entry into the strange fantasy world... an eerie vignette that is a model of careful, suspenseful writing, featuring unearthly quiet, child-like flowers, a a taciturn Woodsman, the smoking remains of the german bomber, bleeding trees, a house in the woods with a Giger-like exterior, and a gathering of evil wolfish beings. He laid a hand gently on David’s shoulder, and David saw understanding in his face. ‘Rules and routines are good, but they must give you satisfaction. Can you truly say you gain that from touching and counting?’ World War II is on, and 12-year old David is mourning the loss of his mother and moving to the home of his father's new wife and their baby son; and all he chooses to have for company is a book collection that has been left in his new room. Yay for books!Don't get me wrong, this book was perfectly alright; it is very readable and well-plotted. The characters and their relationships make sense, the world created is interesting, and the fairy tales are well integrated. I am still dissappointed because it could have been SO much better.

I believe in those whom I love and trust. All else is foolishness. This god is as empty as his church. His followers choose to attribute all of their good fortune to him, but when he ignores their pleas or leaves them to suffer, they say only that he is beyond their understanding and abandon themselves to his will. What kind of god is that?” If you like Stephen King's earlier works and are a fan of old fairy tales, then you'll love this book. It was creepy at times but never overwhelmingly scary. 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. Not enough of the fairy tales are included to truly feel like you've shown us the full picture of this world. We need more! Fugue state, formally Dissociative Fugue... usually involves unplanned travel or wandering, and is sometimes accompanied by the establishment of a new identity. Fugues are usually precipitated by a stressful episode.He would talk to them of stories and books, and explain to them how stories wanted to be told and books wanted to be read, and how everything that they ever needed to know about life and the land of which he wrote, or about any land or realm that they could imagine, was contained in books. And some of the children understood, and some did not.” You don't have much faith in people, do you?' asked David. 'I don't have much faith in anything,' Roland replied. 'Not even in myself.” The beginning of the story takes its time to develop, but this leisurely pace didn’t bother because Connolly does an amazing job with it. He keeps us engaged as he introduces us to the characters and slowly allows the fantasy elements to creep and and crawl and bleed into the narrative. This makes the transition from our world into the fantasy world feel authentic and seamless. In addition, the early events of the story turn out to be critical to the central plot and final resolution of the story and so form important threads in the overall tapestry. I would recommend it to everyone, because i feel like it's something that must be read at least once in our lives.