STARDUST.

STARDUST by NEIL GAIMAN.

SOURCE: Free with the Guardian newspaper.

ABOUT THE BOOK: At the dawn of the Victorian era, life moves at a leisurely pace in the tiny town of Wall. Young Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to the beautiful Victoria Forester, but Victoria is as cold and distant as the star she and Tristran see fall from the sky one evening. For the prize of Victoria's hand, Tristran vows to retrieve the star for his beloved. It is an oath that sends the lovelorn swain over the town's ancient wall and into a world that is dangerous and strange beyond imagining....

FIRST SENTENCE {Chapter One: In which we learn of the village of Wall, and of the curious thing that occurs there every nine years}: There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire.

MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 79}: 'What is it?'
'The usual. Cat's breath and fish-scales and moonlight on a mill-pond, melted and smithied and forged by the dwarfs. You'll be needin' it to bring your star back with you.'

MY THOUGHTS: Having watched the film before I read the book I confess that I couldn't help but compare and contrast the two (never a good thing and something I try my best to avoid doing) and admit to finding the book lacking in that for me it just didn't have the sparkle that the film did though whether or not this was because the edition of the book I read apparently contained a slightly rewritten text I'll never know.

Generally marketed as a 'fairy tale' for grown ups'. Whilst Stardust may well be suitable for most older teenagers I would advise caution to parents of younger children as the story isn't without a certain amount of sex, some of it quite explicit, and, though perhaps not as much as in some other works of fantasy fiction, it does contain some fairly gruesome and what I on occasion felt were unnecessarily graphic violent images.

That said, this is essentially the enchanting story of what after all is a magical romance with the inclusion of witches, pirates and, my favourites, seven brothers which manages to be as ethereal as it is somehow grotesque, as dark as it is humorous.

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