Each time I tink Neil Gaiman is going to follow a well traveled story arc, he deviates here and there until you end up with something original and magical all on its own. He doesnt disappoint with this book. In some ways, it is a coming of age book, both Tristran and the star growing and changing by the end. Theres trickery, ships of the sky, and a unicorn. The tale is also sprinkled with every day stuff, such as Tristran taking a shovel with him into the woods to make a little deposit. Such little things help to make the characters, and the experience, real.
As much as I love Gaimans work, I do have 2 small issues with this book. Obviously, they dont break the book for me as I have read it multiple times. Its good to love some flawed things in your life aunties, vases, yourself, and books. So much growing up happens between the lines, and much of it within 6 pages where it isnt really described. So, while I get to know Tristran as a young man bumbling through life, and then I see him as a young man having made up his mind about several things and gained the confidence to follow through, the in between stuff was left out. The second point is a mild SPOILER: the star goes from being captured by Tristran, to being obligated to be by his side for an unforeseeable amount of time to loving him. I never really got the sense that she fell, totally, utterly, head over heels in love with him. Rather, what started as an intolerable obligation later became a tolerable arrangement. END SPOILER
As much as I love Gaimans work, I do have 2 small issues with this book. Obviously, they dont break the book for me as I have read it multiple times. Its good to love some flawed things in your life aunties, vases, yourself, and books. So much growing up happens between the lines, and much of it within 6 pages where it isnt really described. So, while I get to know Tristran as a young man bumbling through life, and then I see him as a young man having made up his mind about several things and gained the confidence to follow through, the in between stuff was left out. The second point is a mild SPOILER: the star goes from being captured by Tristran, to being obligated to be by his side for an unforeseeable amount of time to loving him. I never really got the sense that she fell, totally, utterly, head over heels in love with him. Rather, what started as an intolerable obligation later became a tolerable arrangement. END SPOILER
