Great dark fairytale

A very good story although I felt that the narrator left to many long dramatic pauses so I listen to it at 1.10 speed and that fixed it.

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3 people found this helpful

Reads like a fairy tail, stings like only real life can.

This was a beautifully haunting experience, with both dark old fashioned fairy tale motifs and all the hallmarks of a great coming of age story with moments both emotional, occasionally funny and often existentially terrifying. Highly recommend for any age, but will likely especially hit home for older children and teenagers. Solid performance from the narrator as well, with great range and command of characters.

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2 people found this helpful

A fantastic tale. Couldn't put it down.

What a wonderful story which encapsulates fairytales, but not in the Disney sense, The book draws you and stirs the imagination. The feelings of grief and jealousy felt by a young boy and his anger is used to drag him into another world where his adventures cause him to grow up and deal with his emotions and realise his mistakes.The ending is wonderful.
Brilliantly narrated, great character definitions and very emotive.

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2 people found this helpful

What a wonderful book.

This is a wonderful book that explores the nature of mankind. It contains both dark and light aspects of all humanity, both young and old. It has a chilling edge to it, coupled with humour that is almost silly at times.

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2 people found this helpful

ok

I just started to listen to the book. it's red quite slowly so if you read and listen at the same time it's frustrating... also it goes from normal voice to whisper a lot so it's hard to listen to it quietly without turning it up all the time and ending up with a loud boom.

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1 person found this helpful

Great story with the flavours of dark fairy tales.

I loved this book.
A slow start but masterfully narrated, dark humour and a great tale.

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Masterful enthralling, wondrous…

John Connolly is undoubtedly my favourite author, but even I was surprised at how gripping, magical and thoroughly satisfying this was. A proper grown-up story for children with a villain to rival all others.

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A traditional tale

A classic tale of good and evil - child with ‘wicked’ step mother journeying through a serious of challenges with various beasts and temptations, making friends and learning along the way to come to a full conclusion. I would have said it was more suited to YA apart from some of the dark themes around the baddie towards the end (won’t spoil the plot). Cleverly weaves in classic stories along the way. So a good neat story.
Narrator was good, deployed different accents for the various characters very well BUT MUCH TOO SLOW. After about 4 minutes in I switched it onto faster speed, something I have never done before, and listened to the whole thing at 1.3 x speed.

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Wonderful stuff!

Anyone who enjoyed fairy tales as a child will love this, and it's performed beautifully.

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2 people found this helpful

Not a children's fairy story it's far better that.

I loved this story. A proper curl up by the fire and listen to someone telling you a fantastic tale type audio book.
As a Stephen King fan I was thrilled that John Connolly was also inspired by the same Browning poem that gave us King's Dark Tower series - it was great meeting g a Roland in this story.
The figure of the 'trickster' was truly frightening - all the more so as his evil was revealed.
The lesson within the story was also inspirational and strangely up lifting - the final chapter actually made me tear up.

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1 person found this helpful