The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly


David is alone in the world. He has no friends. His mother is dead. His father too obsessed with his new girlfriend to care. He has only books for company.
The books left by his mother speak to him in the night, telling him their tales. As he takes refuge in the books he loves the two world of fiction and reality begin to fuse together.
The crooked comes at night to steal away children and when he sets his twisted gaze on David’s new half brother he is thrust into the world of sick and warped fairy tales.

Set in WWII the Book of Lost Things is an invigorating through and through. There are books where you think about them for a few days, some you forget the next day but the book of lost things just refuses to go away. John Connolly
gets other well known stories such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Sleeping Beauty and Rumplestiltskin and exaggerates them to more likely stories like Rumplestiltskin (the crooked man) who is an evil ‘trickster’ who’s hobbies include slaughtering and torturing humans. This book is as much as an account of growing up on behalf of the author as a fantasy book


He had, in truth, been losing her for a very long time. The disease that was killing her was a creeping, cowardly thing, a sickness that ate away at her from the inside, slowly consuming the light within, so that her eyes grew a little less bright with each passing day and her skin a little more pale. And as she was stolen away from him, piece by piece, the boy became more and more afraid of finally losing her entirely. He wanted her to stay. He had no brothers and no sisters, and while he loved his father it would be true to say that he loved his mother more. He could not bear to think of a life without her. The boy, whose name was David, did everything that he could to keep his mother alive. He prayed. He tried to be good, so that she would not be punished for his mistakes. He padded around the house as quietly as he was able, and kept his voice down when he was playing war games with his toy soldiers. He created a routine, and he tried to keep to that routine as closely as possible, because he believed in part that his mother's fate was linked to the actions he performed. He would always get out of bed by putting his left foot on the floor first, then his right. He always counted up to twenty when he was brushing his teeth, and he always stopped when the count was completed. He always touched the taps in the bathroom and the handles of the doors a certain number of times: odd numbers were bad but even numbers were fine, with two, four and eight being particularly favourable, although he didn't care for six because six was twice three and three was the second part of thirteen, and thirteen was very bad indeed. If he bumped his head against something he would bump it a second time to keep the numbers even, and sometimes he would have to do it again and again because his head seemed to bounce against the wall, ruining his count, or his hair glanced against it when he didn't want it to, until his skull ached from the effort and he felt giddy and sick.

As you can see from the text John Connolly also has a good sense of humour and is not just a serious writer. I think this book is very good for all ages though it is aged for older teenagers and adults I found it very enjoyable. I recommend this book for fans of more intelligent fantasy and adventure books.

By Flynn Disney