The Child Thief by Brom

What a strangely disturbing, dark and intriguing tale. I actually enjoyed it for the most part despite the violence and dreariness.

The Child Thief is a different look at the tale of Peter Pan. In this tale, Peter steals children, but only the runaways and down and out ones. He leads them through the mist to Avalon where things aren't as wonderful as they used to be. A group called the flesh-eaters roam the island, men who have been twisted by the magic there and they are destroying the magical place. So Peter recruits these children to help him fight them despite it being a losing battle. And his greatest enemy that he knows is the Captain.

I hesitate to call anyone a good or bad guy in this book. Its kind of just shades of grey and at times I find Peter more menacing than the Captain. And I think that's how Brom meant it to be. Everyone is misguided and vicious and the very base of themselves. Certainly goodness has been lost in this twisted world and savagery what replaces it. Peter I didn't really find very likable at all, but that's just as well considering Nick, one of the children doesn't find him impressive either and I really like Nick's character. I found him the most real out of all of them. There are several of the "lost" children as well and even they are not quite human if not humane.

As I said before this book is very very dark. So dark in fact that it starts with the rape of a young girl by her father. And it just goes down into gore, murder, and other violence from there. If this isn't to your taste don't even try to read this book as its in every page. It also paints a pretty bleak picture of Christianity, so again be warned if this isn't to your taste. Despite all the violence and rage this book holds I did enjoy the vast majority of it. My main complaint would be the ending. It just seemed to lose focus and the tone wasn't as interesting as the first part was. It seemed more like action and less plot was the important role.

I did like it. And I think it was inventive. Add in the great pictures from Brom and it really completes the picture. A very dark wonderful book.

The Child Thief
Copyright 2009
481 pages