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A review by alexblackreads
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
4.0
It was absolutely wild to go into this book having no idea what to expect. I thought this was middle grade, which seems like a reasonable assumption from the beginning (12 year old boy dealing with grief and anxiety), but then it kept getting darker. And darker. At a point I genuinely looked this up because I was so confused. Definitely not middle grade.
But I still really enjoyed this. The writing was fantastic. It was so compelling, and Connolly's depictions of grief and anxiety were wonderful. He captured it so perfectly for a younger audience, without having to explicitly spell it out. I thought it was truly wonderful. I also really enjoyed the development of the main character throughout the book, how he was changed both by his person grief and by the external factors of the fairytale world that had trapped him.
I struggled with the quest-type nature of this book. The main character goes through many villains as he goes on his way and each villain has their own horrific little side story going on. Individually I did enjoy them all, but as a whole, it felt like they were too easily disregarded. There'd be a chapter of them most awful gruesome thing you can imagine (think dismembering animals and children for fun and surgically combining them), only as soon as it was over, it was never mentioned again. That was kind of it. I wish there'd been fewer side quests in favor of actually spending time with them and the main character's growth.
I definitely wasn't the intended audience for this book, but there's certainly a type of teen who would devour this and fall in love. I certainly had trouble putting this book down and I think it's a testament to how well this was written that I enjoyed it as much as I did. Twisted fairytales aren't something that intrigue me usually, but the characters and story of the book more than made up for it. I would highly recommend.
But I still really enjoyed this. The writing was fantastic. It was so compelling, and Connolly's depictions of grief and anxiety were wonderful. He captured it so perfectly for a younger audience, without having to explicitly spell it out. I thought it was truly wonderful. I also really enjoyed the development of the main character throughout the book, how he was changed both by his person grief and by the external factors of the fairytale world that had trapped him.
I struggled with the quest-type nature of this book. The main character goes through many villains as he goes on his way and each villain has their own horrific little side story going on. Individually I did enjoy them all, but as a whole, it felt like they were too easily disregarded. There'd be a chapter of them most awful gruesome thing you can imagine (think dismembering animals and children for fun and surgically combining them), only as soon as it was over, it was never mentioned again. That was kind of it. I wish there'd been fewer side quests in favor of actually spending time with them and the main character's growth.
I definitely wasn't the intended audience for this book, but there's certainly a type of teen who would devour this and fall in love. I certainly had trouble putting this book down and I think it's a testament to how well this was written that I enjoyed it as much as I did. Twisted fairytales aren't something that intrigue me usually, but the characters and story of the book more than made up for it. I would highly recommend.