The Book of Lost Things: A Novel (2008)

This is a beautiful edition with reproductions of the illustrations from the first special edition many years ago. ( )

This book was great. It's about growing up by acknowledging that there is good and bad within us all, but doing your best to not indulge. The spinning of the fairy-tales into the non-happily-ever-after themes keeps the novel grounded into reality, though it is definitely fantasy. ( )

This book was not what I was expecting. Not at all.

Coming into it, I was expecting a fairy-tale like story about a young boy going off to save the fantasy land. I was expecting something like The Neverending Story. What did I get instead? A bastardised version of Grimm's Fairy Tales with twenty times the blood, guts and horror. And it was so good.

Books about books tends to be a well-loved genre in the bookish community, and this one does it well. Your favourite childhood fairy-tales are brought to life (as freaky monstrous versions of themselves), and having a main character with a love of books is always a plus, in my opinion.

The books themselves actually do come alive in this story, with hilarious consequences. David hears them talking to each other, and what could be better than a bunch of old medical texts calling a psychiatrist an idiot?

This book touches on some very heavy topics from the perspective of a twelve year old boy who doesn't exactly understand how heavy they are. Things like death, grief, war, child rape, family problems and sibling jealousy.

I also didn't realise how apt the choice was to read this book coming into October; it is scary. Not scary like jump-scare horror movies, but scary like when you watch something so disturbing you feel your skin crawl and wonder whether you should check under the bed.

The Crooked Man is a horrifying character, but there are plenty of others who could come close to taking his place, like a Huntress with a knack for making Frankenstein-like creatures, and werewolves that are just plain shiver-inducing.

I think the only thing that brought this novel down a little was that the plot twists were predictable, (but that could just be because I'm good at guessing those sort of things), and that the book itself did not completely 'wow' me. It came close, though.

Although, I think the biggest shock I got reading this book was realising that the last 200 pages were actually just notes. I got to what was obviously the end of the novel and kept looking at the chunk that was left in apprehension. So if you end up with the same edition as mine, do watch out for that.

See more of my thoughts on my blog! ( )

It's been years since I've read this novel but I actually really, really liked it. I think it's part of a trilogy now - so it would be really cool to check out the rest of the books.

It's a story about a boy who travels into this forest in World War II, and much like Alice and Wonderland, he happens upon this magical realm where lots of things happen, and shenanigans ensue.

The thing I really remember about this book was that it was quite dark, strange and wonderful. While it's technically a Young Adult novel, it was much like The Book Thief where you didn't have to be a young adult to enjoy it?

The Book of Lost Things takes a lot of tropes from old fairy-tales and reworks them in a really intricate way. The tone is quite dark and clever and very respectful of young adults, which I really enjoyed. Just because a book is meant for children doesn't mean it has to be childish, only childlike.

This book isn't really scary, but it is definitely haunting and quite dense, as well. I really enjoyed it, though, and would recommend it quite readily. c: ( )

Well I just loved this. I cried twice in the first five pages and finished in two days. And I really loved the appendix at the end with the author's comments on the fairy tales he weaved into his own book. It's a bit dark, but it's an amazing work about the power of books, the way they instruct our understanding of the world, and the ways they help us wade through the murky uncharted waters of life. ( )