Aliverse

‘Everything You Can Imagine is Real’

High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the loss of his mother. He is angry and he is alone, with only the books on his shelf for company.

But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in the myths and fairytales so beloved of his dead mother he finds that the real world and the fantasy world have begun to meld. The Crooked Man has come, with his mocking smile and his enigmatic words: ‘Welcome, your majesty. All hail the new king.’

And as war rages across Europe, David is violently propelled into a land that is both a construct of his imagination yet frighteningly real, a strange reflection of his own world composed of myths and stories, populated by wolves and worse-than-wolves, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a legendary book . . .

The Book of Lost Things.

What a wonderful change of pace! Do you remember being a child and getting immersed in a book about a strange land with strange people or creatures? Do you remember the feeling of losing time and the sense of what is around you? Do you remember the sense of excitement and adventure that these books inspired in you? If you do, read John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things. This book was truly a departure from the norm as far as my standard ‘grown-up’ type books go. But this is not simply a children’s novel. This is absolutely a book for adults too. It’s a book of enchantment, fear, excitement, and adventure. It takes you into the world of the unknown and imagination and doesn’t let go until you are hungry for more.

The only negative aspect of this book, for me, was the fact that I wanted more at the end and was only left with the back flap. Read this book. Give it as a gift to the dreamer you know. Sit down in a warm blanket, a winter storm brewing outside, making the world around you alien and uninviting. Snuggle up and let this book take you into David’s imagination and away from the reality of the world, just as it does for him.

So maybe I should give you something a little more concrete. This book is a grown-up novel about a young man who finds himself lost in a world of his imagination after his real-life world is torn apart by the death of his mother. David’s father remarries, adding a step-mother and then a new child into the mix, making David an afterthought.

When David thinks he hears his dead mother’s voice one night, he follows it into the garden and gets sucked into a strange world, cut off from his own. The adventure begins when he must find the king in this strange world in order to get back to his life in WWII England.

There was never a moment when reading this book that I wanted to put it down. That is a rare treat for me, and one I hope you will enjoy soon.

~ 5 out of 5 stars ~