At times, this was a truly moving narrative. I found the alternation of narrative between Henry Day and the changeling Aniday one of the most compelling portions of the book. Henry and Aniday made great foils, speaking to what makes the human experience truly important and how social relationships, creativity and introspection each have integral roles. On the other hand, the book feels underdeveloped. Plot threads, characters, even themes are dropped completely, without a backward glance. At times the plot overwhelms any thematic development and inversely, especially at the end of the book, the reader is asked to endure some extremely contrived plots in servitude to hammered imagery. ( )

I was not expecting this book to draw me in as much as it did. The story follows the lives of a changling who becomes a boy, and the displaced boy who becomes a changling. Fantastic characterization and one of the oddest stories I've ever read about finding oneself. ( )

It's like a male version of "The Lovely Bones" - ideas of things that are done and can't be undone, of loss how people grieve and come to move on. ( )

It was OK. Or, perhaps the problem was that I'd read "The Motion of Puppets" by the same author and my expectations were too high. While TMoP whetted my desire to read more of the author's works, The Stolen Child did not create any feelings. Whatsoever. It was a bit dry, and I was strongly reminded of Christina Henry's Lost Boy.
On the whole, however, try it, especially if you've not read any of the author's other works. ( )

"One doesn't go through the time and effort to be the only reader of your own book. Even the diarist expects the lock to be picked."

I've been tricked. This book is the changeling. I expected a fantasy and instead got a well-disguised melancholy contemporary less about myth and creepiness, and more about...angst. And getting married. And...moms?

It wasn't exactly in a league of its own, but I still found it almost hauntingly lovely. The writing is a memoir style, and I find those easy to race through - things you don't care about go by briefly, and the things you love are just as brief but written with such succinct power that they still resonate for how minor they are. In any other writer's hands, the plot and characters wouldn't be able to disguise their lack of colour or true appeal, but hey, hidden under all those gorgeous metaphors and beautiful tangents? I was happily distracted. Took me up to 60% to realize that Aniday was a dead-eyed observer and that Henry was actually totally insufferable (but he did things, so he wins).

Yeah...eerie, and weird, and admittedly once we really got into it, I liked the way the changelings were characters but still very obviously unfolding as just One Big Symbol. This is a lament on childhood and mediocrity but with lots of loathing and goblins that are barely creepy.

The annoying things about it are more interesting, honestly, than the things I did like about it, but it's worth noting that it did all come together as something cozy and beautiful to read. This drowsy, toothless memoir. ( )