Stardust

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Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Pages: 238
Publication Year:
Genre: Nonfiction
Count for Year: 31

I had never read a book written by Neil Gaiman alone (I had read Good Omens, which he wrote with Terry Pratchett, of course) until I had read Neverwhere. My wife had read Anansi Boys and American Gods, and loved them both. With Neverwhere, I fell in love with Gaiman’s writing. About a month or so ago, my wife saw the movie adaptation of this book and then read it. She told me I should read the book first, because it was better than the movie, even though she said the movie was good, but completely different than the book. So I read the book first.

For me, Neverwhere set the standard pretty high, so I was expecting a little bit of a letdown, plus my wife told me that this wasn’t as good as Neverwhere. After reading it, I agree it wasn’t as good, but it still had its moments. In short, the story is about Tristan Thorn who promises to retrieve a fallen star for the girl he loves, Victoria Forester. The catch: he has to cross a stone barrier into the land of Faerie and battle others, including a witch, who believes the heart of the star will give her and her sisters their youth back, and brothers, who believe that whichever gets the star will become lord of the kingdom in which they live. That latter part of the story worked for me, while the part with the eldest witch chasing after Tristan and the star didn’t work as much for me.

However, I appreciated the elements of fairy tales that Gaiman brought into the story and even though the story didn’t resonate with me completely, I could see how it would resonate with other readers. Because of the strength of it being a good fairy tale and yet because I guess I’m not that much into fairy tales, in my;

Final Analysis: I give it a 7.5 out of 10. This is the first half-step review I’ve given, because for me, it’s just a little below being as good as I thought it would be, yet not quite as bad as I imagine other books in the genre are.

Others’ reviews of this book:

• Becky’s Book Reviews
• SomeReads
• Suey’s Books
• Stephanie’s Confessions of a Book-a-holic
• The Hidden Side of A Leaf
• A Striped Armchair
• Booksworms and tea lovers
• Trish’s Reading Nook
• Blue Archipelago
• Bart’s Bookshelf
• Passion for the Page
• The Bluestocking Society
• Sophisticated Dorkiness

BONUS: Blue Leaf on Stardust: a one-page note that can be used “as a reading group guide, a book club discussion page, a self-study reference” with “discussion questions included.” Prepared by Jessica at the Bluestocking Society

If you’ve reviewed this book or one of the books I’ve reviewed earlier this year, drop me an e-mail at justareadingfool [at] gmail [dot] com and I’ll link to your review too!

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Tags: book review, Books, Fantasy