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Location: Vero Beach, Florida, United States

My name is Pat and I live in Florida. My skin will never be smooth again and my hair will never see color. I enjoy collecting autographs and playing in Paint Shop Pro.,along with reading and writing. Sometimes, I enjoy myself by doing volunteer "work" helping celebrities at autograph shows. I love animals and at one time I did volunteer work for Tippi Hedren's Shambala Preserve.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Child Thief

The Child Thief by Brom

Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Eos; Reprint (August 17, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0061671347

(my 3rd read for RIP. and no, it was not on my original list)

From Publishers Weekly

Chesley-winning illustrator Brom (The Plucker) weaves together gloomy prose and horrifying adventures in this macabre fairy tale inspired by J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. Born of faerie blood, Peter hunts abandoned children, runaways and the hopeless, recruiting for his Devils in Avalon and promising them a place where you never have to grow up. He conveniently fails to mention that Avalon's monsters are very real, and the Devils must practice their war games or risk being tortured to death, eaten or worse. While early chapters are promising, this gothic fantasy stumbles on its own darkness. The devilishly amusing flashbacks to Peter's origins don't make up for the heavy-handed bloodshed, rampant violence and two-dimensional characters. It's all fiendish monsters and desperate battles in this twisted, dark Neverland; the Disney Peter's mirth and good humor are nowhere to be found.

This is a perfect read for RIP... and nothing (nothing!) that you'd read to small children ready for bed!

Having read the first 50 pages I thought to myself.. ummm nope, this isn't for me.  First off I don't like "retold fairytales" , secondly I don't like books written in "now time".. I want to escape to somewhere else!

But there was something that made me keep reading. (This certainly is not the Peter Pan that I knew about!) I think I kept expecting some big change to happen.. It didn't.  But it did get bloody and the "F" word was in "overkill"..but the story... the story was keeping me hooked. The lost boys were lost in more ways than one. I wondered where this story was to go?  Boy did I ever find out!  Not only was I hooked on this book, but it kept me reading every minute that my butt was in the chair!  My mind was in overdrive.  But.. I don't want to give anything away! I think I enjoyed this because I knew nothing about it.

I can see where many people would even enjoy this more than I did. The the whole book, to me, was a "love/ hate" relationship.  But it did win out in the end.  The book is a keeper for the art alone, but to be honest I have to say I know Brom was trying to stay faithful to modern day "gangs" with the language.  I just had a hard time because I left hearing that in "real life" not that long ago and had already had my fill. 

It was a definite.. right book.. for RIP!!  It was DARK. 

It was Gruesome.

It was NOT a dream come true! 

But it was a read I never expected to enjoy... but I did, yes indeed I did!

7 Comments:

Blogger chrisa511 said...

OOooooh...what a great review Pat :D And one that I'm definitely adding to my wishlist! Glad to hear that it surprised you in the end and that you ended up liking it.

1:21 PM  
Blogger Kailana said...

I am so glad you liked this. I had it out from the library and I had a hard time getting into it, so I decided to put it aside until I was in a different mood. I rerequested it, though, so hopefully I will be able to read on this time!

1:25 PM  
Blogger Kathleen said...

Sounds like a great read. So glad you enjoyed it!

3:35 PM  
Blogger Cath said...

This one sounds like a bit of a different read for you, Pat. I don't care for retold fairy stories either so am not sure it would be for me but I'm glad you ended up liking it.

6:15 PM  
Blogger DesLily said...

kelly: it's actually pretty gruesome..not sure why I couldn't put it down.

thanks Kathleen!

cath: I don't like retold fairytales either but this was a definate perfect rip read!

6:52 AM  
Blogger Ladytink_534 said...

This sounds exactly like my kind of book. I actually adore retold fairy tales...

2:21 PM  
Blogger DesLily said...

tink: it's gruesome! lol

3:18 PM  

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