** 3.5 stars **
First of all: What a beautiful book cover (illustrated edition)! Second of all: Hear me out, I get that this is a very good book! And somehow I feel like I should have enjoyed it more than I actually did. I’m not quite sure what it was but it just didn’t grab me.
I loved Neil Gaiman’s depiction of a seven-year-old, though. The world was so small because he was only a child, yet it was so big because he was only a child (reading and endowed with a vivid imagination). The family dynamics came across really nicely too. Siblings that fight and begrudge one another of things. Parents that don’t understand their children and children that are overwhelmed with situations.
And then there’s one of my most favourite quotes ever: “Nobody actually looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.”
Wisdom!
However, his style of writing here wasn’t my thing, as the sentences were just too short and choppy for my taste. It seems to me that this was purposely written like that to support and enhance the mystery and suspense. Plus, the main part is from the POV of a seven-year-old, so really complicated sentences wouldn’t have fit either. But I just never actually got into it.
I might also be too dense to get the actual meaning and what the author wanted to get across with this novel.
I mean, I’m still not sure if Ursula Monkton represented greed or selfishness or something like that. Maybe she wasn’t there to represent any of those things.
And last but not least, for me, there was just too much left for the reader’s imagination. I get that it adds to the wonder and the complexity of the world and the magic, but it just didn’t make my reading experience that great.
Ultimately, I can see and appreciate that this is a very good book, but it just wasn’t for me.
The illustrations, however, now those were breathtaking! Loved them! And I’m glad that I bought this edition.
