Book Review: Stardust, Neil Gaiman

Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Published: 30/09/2010, Headline
Pages: 243
Source: Amazon freebie
Format: Ebook
Rating: 1.5/5
Life moves at a leisurely pace in the tiny town of Wall - named after the imposing stone barrier which separated the town from a grassy meadow. Here, young Tristan Thron has lost his heart to the beautiful Victoria Forester and for the coveted prize of her hand, Tristan vows to retrieve a fallen star and deliver it to his beloved. It is an oath that sends him over the ancient wall and into a world that is dangerous and strange beyond imagining...

I've always wanted to read Stardust ever since I first saw the movie (all those years ago). It's the one Gaiman book I was really looking forward to reading. However, I actually found Stardust completely different to what I expected and, oddly, I think I actually prefer the movie. This book is definitely not for kids, unlike the movie!

I do think Stardust does stand apart from the rest when it comes to originality and I did enjoy the story somewhat. Of course, a lot of memories watching the movie came back to me whilst reading this. However, I just did not find Stardust as fun as the film and, in all honesty, it felt like a real slog just to read it. I only wanted to finish it because it's such an iconic book (in my opinion). For being quite a short book I actually spent over two weeks trying to finish it.

The characters were okay, but Tristran definitely has a knack of annoying me and Yvaine came across a bit helpless a lot of the time. I just really could not connect with them.

Stardust is also told from various points of view and they didn't always occur in parallel to each other (from how I picked them up anyway). There was a lot of backwards and forwards. The point of view also changes without much warning so it was sometimes tricky to keep up and, I must admit, I was confused at times. Especially when it switched between the witches.

The plot also dragged a bit for me. From what I gather, Stardust occurs over a few months to years - I'm not too sure - so there were whole periods of time where nothing happened and it was just hard to imagine the time passing.

I also found some parts of the story very strange, even for a fantasy. But all the twists tied up in the end and I actually thought the ending was quite lovely in its own way.

Overall, I'm glad I finally read Stardust, but I am disappointed that I didn't like it as much as I'd hoped to. Let's just say, I probably won't read it again. However, oddly enough, I would still recommend it to anyone looking to get a taste of Neil Gaiman.

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