“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.”
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy.
Number of Pages: 352.
Perspective: First.
Location: Wales
This is the story of a boy who witnesses his grandfather’s horrific death. He learns that the crazy stories of people with strange talents that his grandpa used to tell are actually real people in a hidden orphanage off a remote Wales island. He decides to go find these people to help him mourn and move on. For a complete summary, you can go here.
The coolest part about this book is that it contains the pictures that the author based his characters off of. They are either real people or slightly manipulated to show people with strange traits or talents, such as levitation.
I finished this book as I was sitting in the theater waiting for the movie version to start. This forced me to compare the movie and book quite heavily. The movie version was good on its own, but they changed many things from the book. I preferred the way the book presented things and the way the book ended. I do recommend reading the book and seeing the movie. They are both great separately.
It was an interesting book unlike anything else I have ever read, which is rare these days. The author did an amazing job creating descriptive and believable characters. I am looking forward to reading the next few books in the series! I hope they don’t disappoint like so many other series. If you are interested in buying the book, you can buy it here. After you have read it, leave a comment and let me know what you think!
“We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high.”
4/5 Stars
