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The Book of Lost Things
by John Connolly

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/69136.The_Book_of_Lost_Things?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Book of Lost Things" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1170703577m/69136.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/69136.The_Book_of_Lost_Things?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Book of Lost Things</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/38951.John_Connolly">John Connolly</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10781644?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>I would have liked to give this book 3 1/2 stars rather than 4 but that's not allowed on here. I suppose the story was good; I don't have any complaints about the plot. Yet, I was never really pulled into the story. I had no qualms about putting this book down for a week to read a couple other books, which is sort of unusual for me. And the thing is, I usually adore fairytale-esque books. However, the characters all seemed sort of flat. I'm not sure why though. Perhaps because it seemed like any time Connolly gave us insights into their thoughts and personalities it just came across matter-of-factly and emotionless. The entire story felt like it was being apathetically told by someone who had heard it too many times before.
<br/>It reminded me of a couple other books though. At the beginning when there was a lot of talk about David's obsessive/borderline escapist love for reading and the way the books were whispering and such, I thought of Inkheart. Then when Roland and the Woodsman were telling David their tales and it would say "Roland's First Tale" I was strongly reminded of the Canterbury Tale.
<br/>The only thing that really through me for a loop was Roland's quest for his soulmate- that he's gay. Not because I am opposed to that sort of thing, but because the book has a children's story quality to it, so it was very odd to have this gay character thrown in. It felt sort of like Connolly was trying to remind us that he is in fact writing an adult's novel or something.
<br/>My favorite parts about this book? The dwarves for one :). And actually, I really enjoyed the part in the back of my book where Connolly has put in the original fairytales (by the Grimm Brothers and such) that inspired him, the passages that he put them into, and his explanations. I loved reading all the original tales. The weird part was that whenever Connolly would say like oh I put such-and-such theme in here for such-and-such reason, or, this part was a metaphor to show such-and-such I was like, "are you serious?" because I totally didn't see any of those themes in it. Maybe I'm just clueless, or maybe Connolly just sucks at making his themes discernable.
<br/>So, in conclusion, I really wanted to love this book but I find myself just barely liking it, and I find it a bit sad that my favorite part of the book was not the actual story.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/699639?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Molly's review
rating:
bookshelves: book-club
recommended for: fairytale afficionados

I would have liked to give this book 3 1/2 stars rather than 4 but that's not allowed on here. I suppose the story was good; I don't have any complaints about the plot. Yet, I was never really pulled into the story. I had no qualms about putting this book down for a week to read a couple other books, which is sort of unusual for me. And the thing is, I usually adore fairytale-esque books. However, the characters all seemed sort of flat. I'm not sure why though. Perhaps because it seemed like any time Connolly gave us insights into their thoughts and personalities it just came across matter-of-factly and emotionless. The entire story felt like it was being apathetically told by someone who had heard it too many times before.
It reminded me of a couple other books though. At the beginning when there was a lot of talk about David's obsessive/borderline escapist love for reading and the way the books were whispering and such, I thought of Inkheart. Then when Roland and the Woodsman were t...more I would have liked to give this book 3 1/2 stars rather than 4 but that's not allowed on here. I suppose the story was good; I don't have any complaints about the plot. Yet, I was never really pulled into the story. I had no qualms about putting this book down for a week to read a couple other books, which is sort of unusual for me. And the thing is, I usually adore fairytale-esque books. However, the characters all seemed sort of flat. I'm not sure why though. Perhaps because it seemed like any time Connolly gave us insights into their thoughts and personalities it just came across matter-of-factly and emotionless. The entire story felt like it was being apathetically told by someone who had heard it too many times before.
It reminded me of a couple other books though. At the beginning when there was a lot of talk about David's obsessive/borderline escapist love for reading and the way the books were whispering and such, I thought of Inkheart. Then when Roland and the Woodsman were telling David their tales and it would say "Roland's First Tale" I was strongly reminded of the Canterbury Tale.
The only thing that really through me for a loop was Roland's quest for his soulmate- that he's gay. Not because I am opposed to that sort of thing, but because the book has a children's story quality to it, so it was very odd to have this gay character thrown in. It felt sort of like Connolly was trying to remind us that he is in fact writing an adult's novel or something.
My favorite parts about this book? The dwarves for one :). And actually, I really enjoyed the part in the back of my book where Connolly has put in the original fairytales (by the Grimm Brothers and such) that inspired him, the passages that he put them into, and his explanations. I loved reading all the original tales. The weird part was that whenever Connolly would say like oh I put such-and-such theme in here for such-and-such reason, or, this part was a metaphor to show such-and-such I was like, "are you serious?" because I totally didn't see any of those themes in it. Maybe I'm just clueless, or maybe Connolly just sucks at making his themes discernable.
So, in conclusion, I really wanted to love this book but I find myself just barely liking it, and I find it a bit sad that my favorite part of the book was not the actual story....less

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