Non-stop nightmare
Bewertet mit 3 Sternen
This book caught my attention solely with its cover, the title and the creepy doll face made me curious. Toy Thief sounds like fantasy and horror rolled into one and my first thought was something on the lines of fairy-tale gone wrong, though I have no idea where that comes from. The first part of the book surely delivered on that premise, and I loved the creepiness of the Toy Thief and the mysteriously vanishing toys, which had a dreamlike (or rather nightmarish) quality. That, however, was topped in the second half, which became much darker and violent.
While I loved the plot - I can easily picture it made into a movie (by Guillermo del Toro as suggested by the author) and the Thief's cave alone would be so worth watching it! -, I had my problems with the main character Jack, who tells the story as she writes it down years later. I really wanted to sympathize with Jack, but it just wouldn't 'click'. I can only assume there might be a misinterpretation on my side, I constantly wanted to shake her out of her self-pity that seemed to permeate the pages. While I could follow her thoughts and actions as a child (loved when she set up the trap for the Thief!), I was irritated, if not annoyed by her adult version, though I can't put my finger on it, it's just a general feeling. I guess I would have preferred the story to focus on the Toy Thief and end sooner, instead of showing how Jack and her brother were changed by the events and what happened to them afterwards. However, I understand that the author's intention was a more complex one, showing what the Toy Thief did to them and how it affected their lives for good.
So while the book took a different path than expected, the writing was intense, almost mesmerizing, so that I found myself glued to the pages most of the time, forgetting everything around me. I will definitely keep the author on my radar from now on.
(Thanks to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for a copy of the book, all opinions are my own)