The Stolen Child - Keith Donohue

[goodreads]

Title: The Stolen Child
Author: Keith Donohue
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 327
Date read: July, 2012

The double story of Henry Day begins in 1949, when he is kidnapped at age seven by a band of wild childlike beings who live in an ancient, secret community in the forest. The changelings rename their captive Aniday and he becomes, like them, unaging and stuck in time. They leave one of their own to take his place, an imposter who must try - with varying success - to hide his true identity from the Day family. As the changeling Henry grows up, he is haunted by glimpses of his lost double and by vague memories of his own childhood a century earlier. Narrated in turns by Henry and Aniday, The Stolen Child follows them as their lives converge, driven by their obsessive search for who they were before they changed places in the world.

I've had this standing on my tbr-shelves for ages, and finally got around to reading it. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as good as I had expected, although still good enough to hold my attention nicely the few days it took me to finish it.

The book is really two intertwining stories, with every second chapter being told by "Henry Day" and every second chapter by "Aniday". Unfortunately I found Henry Day's story a LOT more interesting than that of Aniday, which made for a bit of a sledge through the other chapters. My biggest problem was that it was so depressing! No real happiness was found by neither Henry nor Aniday and it just made the entire thing seem... pointless, really.

Fortunately the book ended on an optimistic note, which caused me to add that last star, but as a whole, I don't think it's a book I'll be in any rush to reread.