Stardust - Neil Gaiman

"Young Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria—even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that old stone wall, Tristran learns, lies Faerie—where nothing, not even a fallen star, is what he imagined."

Inevitably I was reading this with the movie in mind, and I'm here to say that I think the movie and the book are both brilliant. So ha!

I love the movie. It's absolutely wonderful. I also enjoyed the book... But they are quite different. The novel definitely feels more adult. Not just because it has adult themes but also in the overall tone and language. The movie is definitely more family friendly. The movie is wittier, funnier, sillier and faster paced. The book is slower, more whimsical and felt more grounded in reality(even though it's surrounded in magic.)

The problem is that having watched the movie I wanted a fairy-tale. All the things I loved the best about the movie, weren't in the book(and it's usually the other way around, I was surprised too). I mean, no Captain Shakespeare? No happy stars-in-the-sky ending? The movie was such a feel-good one and the book? Not so much.

However, as myself and others have done, it is very easy to feel the need to compare Gaiman's books to popular children's classics but Stardust is not a children's book. At a stretch, it could be called a young adult book but I'm tempted to play on the safe side and call it adult. There's a sex scene in chapter one that is quite graphic. Not fifty shades of faerie, but still quite graphic. Plus there's some violence and gore that may put you off if you are looking for a light, fluffy fantasy read. So, I'm warning you.
Stardust is just one example of Gaiman's creativity. It is nothing like the eerily fantastical subterranean London of Neverwhere or the ghostly coming of age story in The Graveyard Book, but it has the stamp of Gaiman all over it.

Age Rating would be mature 14+ more 15+ personally.