Stardust

I happened to pick up Neil Gaiman's Stardust at the library the other day and promptly proceeded to devour it within a few hours. The story is about an ordinary town called Wall that borders a magical world called Faerie. The worlds are separated by - what else - a wall. In the town of Wall a young man named Tristan Thorn attempts to win the heart of his true love by retrieving a fallen star. Unfortunately for Tristan this star has happened to fall on the other side of the wall. Unbeknown to Tristan he has birthright to cross over into this land (this is explained at the beginning of the novel) and he goes on a quest to search for the fallen star. Along the way he meets a host of interesting people (some alive and some dead) who are also out looking for the star. In true Gaiman fashion the story has a nice sense of humor along to the magical realm.

I quite enjoyed this novel, as it felt like fairy tale for adults. I am not quite sure if I would have enjoyed this book more if I hadn't already seen (and fallen in love with) the film adaptation. The film and the book diverge on several points in the plot. Additionally I felt the film flowed a bit better for my taste (or my lack of attention span). In particular ---tiny spoiler perhaps...you've been warned--- are the difference in the endings. While I felt the ending the movie was happy and romantic, the novel ending was a bit more realistic and quite sad. Either way I thoroughly enjoyed this book...quick read. But for those who don't I still highly recommend the movie, as I felt that were somewhat different in pace from each other.