by Neil Gaiman
Recommended Age: 12+

I am at an awful loss as to what to say about the story without ruining the whole thing for you. Let’s say, for starters, that it really has more in common with Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass than in Wonderland. It takes place in the present day, but it has elements of classic fairy tale combined with a pinch of horror and a dash of fantasy.

Here’s a tantatlizing tid-bit that I hope the author will forgive me for quoting...
“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” asked Coraline.Stardust
“I swear it,” said the other mother. “I swear it on my own mother’s grave.”
“Does she have a grave?” asked Coraline.
“Oh yes,” said the other mother. “I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.”
by Neil Gaiman
Recommended Age: 15+
In Stardust, Neil Gaiman has proven that fairy tales are for grown-ups too. This is a beautiful, magical story. But it is also somewhere between PG-13 and R (for language, violence, and sexual content). I remember The Princess Bride being billed as “a hot fairy tale,” but this book lives up to the hype.

Among the villagers is a youngster named Tristran Thorn, who does not know the full story of where he comes from, but who knows one thing: the fair Victoria is the most beautiful girl in the British Isles, if not the world. And in order to win her hand, he vows to find and bring her a star fallen to earth. A star that fell, wouldn’t you know, on the other side of the wall, in Faerie country.
It’s dangerous enough for a lad like Tristran to be abroad in the land of Faerie. But he hardly reckons on the star taking the form of a young woman who vows to make things as difficult as possible for the young man. Nor does he know about the evil witch queen who wants the star for reasons of her own...or the family of treacherous princes who are racing to find the star in order to win a throne.

I picked it up because I like a good, modern fairy tale. I kept reading it even though it was more adult than I expected, and by and by it became the sort of book that I couldn’t put down. Neil Gaiman seems to be a name to watch. [EDIT: Remember my review of the movie based on this book?]
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