Book Review: The Child Thief by Gerald Brom

Title: The Child Thief
Author and Illustrator: Gerald Brom
Published: New York: Eos, 2009
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 476
Total Page Count: 86,490
Text Number: 248
Read Because: personal enjoyment, borrowed from the library
Review: Retelling Peter Pan with an aim to draw out its unsettling aspects and create a gritty, original story, The Child Thief is the tale of Peter Pan, who coerces children to leave their Brooklyn homes to fight his battles in a magical wonderland, and Nick, one of the lost boys come to join the tribe. Technically speaking, The Child Thief is largely mediocre. That's not entirely a criticism: the book is just average. The plot flows steadily, counteracting the book's bloated length to make it swift and engaging, if not short. Characterization tends a little towards subculture stereotypes, but for the most part it's strong, with a refreshingly brusque protagonist and some authentically meaningful character interaction. The prose is unremarkable with a few annoying weaknesses—including clichéd metaphors, constant physical descriptions of characters (Brom's rooting in a visual medium shows and it does him no favors), and Peter's unrealistic chronological musings on his childhood—and honestly Brom could use an editor. None of these sway the book's quality one way or another: it's readable, sometimes compelling, but never rises above mediocrity. What will make or break this book for the reader is how they feel about the execution of its premise and atmosphere.

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Review posted here on Amazon.com.

A general update of improvements, books, Little Big Planet, and other varieties of busy.

A quick status update, for the sake of one:

I am well! Actually quite well: I've been doing much better this last ... week, let's say? than I had been for a couple months. I've been going to the library twice a week (locals wondering if I ever leave the house: I can usually be found somewhere between the downtown Starbucks and the public library Tuesday and Thursday, around 1p-5p give or take an hour or two), reading contentedly, writing a lot of book reviews (which need typing up) and taking a scattering of notes—I've been chewing through the pages of my Moleskine lately and it feels great. There's something so joyous in the tactile sensation of writing longhand, to say nothing of simply being away from the computer. In short I have been where I love it best: nestled in a cave of books.

Meanwhile, Devon and I are also playing Little Big Planet together (having borrowed it from a friend), and it is certainly making the poor neglected PS3 play its dues, let me tell you. And this weekend, I meet century_eyes for the first time. (Commencing freakout ... like three days ago.) I am social. And active. And happy as I ever am, and my back hates me for it all, but for a week at least I've been doing better and this is a good thing.

The side effect of all this, of mostly being able to brain again and of turning most all that renewed power to books, of getting out of the house and playing video games or reading when I'm here, is that I am a dozen types of busy and few of those types are centered around a computer. If I'm slow at getting back to you, that's why. I know there's always a reason why for my absences and lateness—seems silly still to make them—but ah, there you go.

I hope you are all as well.

sisterite! The stationary arrived today. It is glorious and beautiful (there's two lovely Hello Kitty pages, the transparent ones, that make me smile—to say nothing of the various bits of Engrish) and shall be put to use soon, I hope. Thank you, thank you!