Friday, January 25, 2008

Reading Update 1/25/08

John Connolly -- The Book of Lost Things

What to say about this book? It started off SO well. All week, I've been telling people about this fantastic book I was reading. Raving about it, even. It grabbed me right away and I so didn't want to put it down. But then, as I got deeper into it, it lost some of its magic for me. The writing wasn't nearly as beautiful and pulled-together as the start of the book. Many of the characters felt very one-dimensional to me, and it seemed at times like Connolly was throwing certain violent or twisted elements in almost as an afterthought -- they didn't really feel integrated into the story. I dunno. It was still decent, but not great, in the middle. And then it I both liked and didn't like the ending. I don't want to talk about the aspects of the ending I didn't like, since that would give away too much, I think. But what I did really like about the ending is that the mysterious, wistful tone of the beginning of the book was back. Connolly has the ability to be a lovely writer, but he didn't sustain it throughout the book. I'm actually a little sad -- I really wanted this book to live up to how wonderful it was at the beginning!

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