Stardust

Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy/Fairytale

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/m2hbo7j



Synopsis:

Hopelessly crossed in love, a boy of half-fairy parentage leaves his mundane Victorian-English village on a quest for a fallen star in the magical realm. The star proves to be an attractive woman with a hot temper, who plunges with our hero into adventures featuring witches, the lion and the unicorn, plotting elf-lords, ships that sail the sky, magical transformations, curses whose effects rebound, binding conditions with hidden loopholes and all the rest.

 

Summary:
This admittedly is one of those rare occasions where the synopsis is actually better than the entire book. The story is slow, predictable and nothing ''really'' happens in between the besotted school boy routine and the whining injured star limping around.

My thoughts:
This was incredibly disappointing, whether because I'd just come off the back of an incredibly exciting fairy story or perhaps because I had held the story on such a pedestal(ala Neil Gaiman) it just simply couldn't live up to my expectations.
Yes, I've heard a lot about Neil Gaiman and his exceptional literary reputation but I can't help but feel like this novel was one of the hit and miss kind. And as such I'm not going to let it dishearten me from reading his other, more highly rated novels.

'Stardust' follows the journey of a young Tristan Thorn and his efforts to dazzle the one he loves by retrieving for her, a fallen star. Tristan, in every sense of the word, is a twit.
By far my biggest complaint is the fact that our protagonist is irreversibly intolerable. Its a fair point that most novels don't need a likeable hero/heroine but Tristan was so offensive it was hard for me to overlook his behaviour and logic.

Firstly, he sets out to capture a fallen star for his beloved. Who is she? Why does he love her? Were they childhood friends? Who knows. This and infinite more questions are never answered and could shed at least some light on why Tristan is completely besotted by a cliché beautiful girl besides the fact that he is simply ''hopelessly in love''.
This statement however does not in anyway justify the fact he frequently visits her window and watches her undress. The strangeness and definite predatory air of this action is never mentioned or pertained to, it is simply shrugged off as ''boys being boys''. As if I wasn't already sick of his love struck puppy routine, this put a definite red flag up in my corner.
Secondly, he finds the star. Hooray!...not so much. He is briefly taken a back by the star being a woman but then continues his twit-charade by shackling her and forcing her to walk, with a broken leg, so that he can give her a way to the aforementioned cliché pretty girl.
Sounds thrilling so far, am I right? The excitement doesn't stop there, the star(also known as Yvaine but is rarely referred to by her actual name) begs to be released, and generally cries and whines about how upset and miserable she is for about 50% of the book(no, kidding).
But when she escapes, Tristan feels betrayed and is genuinely upset. Will this end his days of the twit-charade? Will he finally see the metaphorical light and change his ways, do away with shallow girls and dirty tricks in order to get what he wants? Of course not. After a brief realization that she is a human, and it was possibly a bad idea to enslave her, he quickly rekindles his determination to capture her again. He doesn't at all question his own actions or logic, he simply can't think because he's in love, which is such a cliché response that both author and some readers, feel is a perfectly adequate reason, I'll let you in on a secret... it's not.
After a few dragged out scenes in which absolutely everything is described yet again, right down to the star's pair of indiscreet nipples and the number of tufts of grass along the road, Tristan captures her once more and by the time they reach their destination, the star has fallen hopelessly in love with her captor(excuse me while I grab a bucket to hurl and a pair of scissors to desecrate these pages).

But not to worry! Even though the poor star is a gift for the other lucky lady, said lucky lady swiftly rejects Tristan and the gift he gave to her all those years ago(time works differently in faerieland) and admits she is in love with another, and only joked about his retrieving a star to gain her love.
Wounded and once again assuming his love struck puppy routine, the star is quick to step in as the love interest and they both declare their not-so-unrequited love for each other and live happily... oh wait, no it doesn't end there.
Turns out, a mysterious woman who frequently pops up throughout the book is actually Tristan's estranged mother, conned into being a slave for a haggard old witch living in a wagon. Upon her release she reveals that she is the queen of some far off land, a powerful kingdom and Tristan just so happens to be the heir... because of course he is. After his mother, expresses the importance of family, and returning home together after she has spent forty years living as a bird for much of her slave life, Tristan quite bluntly tells her that he and his newly acquainted love of his life shall return to said kingdom whenever they wish. I love you too, mom.

Final word:
So a mixture of bad writing, an excessive use of description over dialogue, dialogue(where it does exist) being pretty useless and/or repetitive, and a plot that is crammed full of clichés, bad gimmicks and ultimately characters that make you want to smack your head on a wall. Stardust is one of the few books which I can safely say, the movie was better.

Star Rating: 0.5 (at most)
Buy: Only if you're desperate(no other reading material to hand, as in the back of a shampoo bottle).
Borrow: Maybe, if you're curious as I was, maybe get it out the library, or liberate a fellow bookworm from their copy as to not further taint their bookshelf.
Further Reading: Any fairy tale would be an improvement on this but a few of my favourites are from none other than the queen of Fae, Holly Black.
''The Darkest Part of the Forest''
''Tithe''
''Ironside''
''Valiant''