Connolly, J: Book of Lost Things

What a weird little book. The protagonist is a small boy, yet the story is gruesome and cruel. The fairy tale retelling does not shy away from taboo topics such as necromancy, sodomy, torture and many more. While some characters like the dwarves were entertaining, I could not connect with any of the characters and honestly didn't care for them. The moral of the story was fit for a young audience, while the tone of the book was not. I did appreciate the inclusion of queerness in a medieval setting, but all in all the story was simply a character test for the protagonist and the growth did not seem organic. He is only starting school and yet the novel paints him as becoming a man through the acts of killing and defending, which in my opinion makes him a traumatized child, not a man. Especially set against the backdrop of his home being ravaged by war it is odd. The antagonist was well written though and I really liked the inclusion of the original tales and the author's notes and thoughts on them in the appendix.