Apr. 28th, 2007

alobear: (Default)
Something strange and terrible happened to me yesterday - I ran out of book at lunchtime, leaving me with nothing to read on the way to the quiz. Since this situation was *inconceivable*, I hastened immediately to the nearest bookshop (luckily there's one round the corner from work) and picked up The Book Of Lost Things, by John Connolly.

And wow, is it good! It's very bizarre to think that, just yesterday, I had no idea it even existed and, less than 30 hours later, its whole 350 pages were in my head. And, not too soon afterwards, there will be very little left of it in my brain, since I don't tend to retain the details of books very long - and I feel as if I owe the author of this book more than that, somehow.

So, I must urge other people to read it! In particular and quite interestingly (since our tastes don't seem to overlap much), I think [livejournal.com profile] corone would really like this one, since its about the twisting of fairy tales into more unpleasant stories than they already are.

My inital thought was that the book is quite cliched, but that's not actually it at all. It's full of things that are very familiar, and yet not quite as you expect them to be, which makes it very absorbing. It's also rather unsettling, since it's a classic children's story plot, and yet the book is very far from being a children's book - it reaches into deep, dark places that would generally only disturb adults. The fact that it is exceedingly well written doesn't hurt, either.
alobear: (Default)
Kindly donated to the Alobear Reading Frenzy by [livejournal.com profile] lareinemisere, Holes was devoured in ninety minutes. [livejournal.com profile] lareinemisere has already reviewed it and I concur with all her points, so I won't repeat them here. It's well-written and nicely structured - but I have to admit I thought the explanation behind the detention camp was a little mundane. I think I've been watching too much Lost!

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