What it’s about (from Goodreads):

 

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

 

Our thoughts:

 

This is a fantastic story. The setting and characters are so vivid that it feels like you're completely immersed in it. And by the time the fantasy elements are introduced, they feel perfectly real. The writing was beautiful.

There's a lot of emotions in this book. There are some scary things, too, but not overly scary. Really, I felt like it was the perfect balance of everything: fantasy, reality, scariness, tameness, emotions, friendship, family.

It's just a great read. Also, the audiobook is narrated by Gaiman himself, so it's fantastic too!

 

We would recommend this to:

 

Fans of fantasy, those who want something a little out there without being overly creepy, anyone looking for a good Halloween read, anyone who just wants a great story to read