Review: THE LAND OF LOST THINGS

Title: The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly

Opening quote: 

Twice upon a time - for that is how some stories continue - there was a mother whose daughter was stolen from her.

Friday56 quote:

You can destroy a book. You can burn it, you can tear it to pieces and scatter them to the four winds, you can soak it until it reverts to pulp or the ink turns the water black, but you can’t destroy the contents of the book, or the idea of the book, not as long as there are those who care, who remember… Who read. Neither can you destroy stories, not unless you destroy people—and some have tried.

Summary:

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world.

Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey - to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres's childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father, to a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; to a land where old enemies are watching, and waiting. (Publisher)

Review: This book is the sequel to one of my most favorite books of a decade ago, The Book of Lost Things. I was so, so wrapped up in that story, clearly living inside the world where everything was different and warped.

I didn't even know that I needed a sequel. The Land of Lost Things is a darker version of the first story where some pretty horrifying things happen and yet, the same kernel is there...the importance of our STORY. The opening quote sets the stage nicely for a sequel, don't you think? And the Friday56 quote, which isn't actually from page 56, sets the stage for the importance of books and owning our own story. 

It is a clever but dark book, published over fifteen years after the first book in the series. I enjoyed it a lot but wished I had reviewed the original. Too much time had elapsed and I forgot many of the details. Here is my short review of The Book of Lost Things.

-Anne