The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

4 stars -- I liked it

By the same author of The Gates comes The Book of Lost Things. I'm having trouble classifying this book for adults or young adults (or in this case, juvenile), just as I did The Gates. I'm not sure that having a young main character, in this case 12 years old, determine whether a book is YA or not is necessarily the best way of sorting books, especially since this book definitely has some dark happenings completely unsuitable for 12-year-olds to read about.

Though not as clever and wittily written as The Gates, The Book of Lost Things is still a fascinating read. Reminiscent of the Narnia series, young David travels to another world from World War II-ravaged London. Once there, the portal closes up, and David has to travel across the countryside to meet the apathetic king of this new and foreign land. The king has a "Book of Lost Things" that David has been told will enable him to return home.

Chased by a type of werewolves and their packs, haunted by a crooked man, and meeting various allies that teach David how to be strong and courageous on his own, David's journey is wrought with peril and enchantment, new-found friends and loss, and is broken occasionally by re-imagined (and less happy) versions of commonly known fairy tales.

In the end (as with most journey stories), David learns a lot about himself, his family, and his feelings, which actually impacts the entire kingdom that David has found himself thrust into.

While not necessarily packed with action and adventure (though there is a somewhat-decent amount), I think it's the ending of this story that really pulls the book together. It's a very sweet and appropriate conclusion. Though the majority of the story is to point out that not everything in life will turn out "happily ever after," the end of this story is a happy, sort-of-realistic one (realistic in the sense that the moral seems to be "just because things don't always go your way doesn't mean you can't live happily).

I'm really beginning to like John Connolly as an author, and I'll keep an eye out for other books of his that are in this same type of genre.