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The Stolen Child A Novel Keith Donohue Books

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The Stolen Child A Novel Keith Donohue Books

Henry Day is replaced by a changeling and his life is stolen from him.

This is a very creepy novel, which provides a change from a lot of the fantasy I have recently read. There is no real happy ending, which wouldn't have been a problem with me but I felt disappointed in the ending. It just felt a bit abrupt. There is all this build up on how the real Henry Day and the Changeling are dealing with the repercussions of the switch, but then suddenly it felt over. The resolution just rang a bit hollow to me. Since it took awhile for the author to get to the end (I for sure grew a bit tired of the repetitiveness of the fairies lives in the woods), I expected much more from it.


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The Stolen Child A Novel Keith Donohue Books Reviews

I recently finished reading Keith Donohue's debut novel The Stolen Child. This is a really engaging novel that allows you to escape into a version of the world that holds much more than meets the eye. I'm not usually someone who reads fantasy novels, but I'm glad I picked this one up.

The story, which has been called "a fairy tale for adults," centers on the myth of changelings. All of those mythical creatures we learned about as children - like faeries, and sprites, and goblins - really do exist, and The Stolen Child tells the story of a long-term encounter between a community of these creatures and real-life humans. When he is a young boy, Henry Day is kidnapped by a group of hobgoblins who live in the forest, and one of the creatures transforms himself to look, sound and act like the real Henry and takes his place in the human world.

The novel follows the next 30 years or so of these two main characters' lives. The real Henry Day becomes Aniday, yet another creature of the forest who learns how to live with his new companions on the very outskirts of the human world, which is rapidly encroaching upon the forest. The former changeling who becomes Henry grows up in the Day family and eventually has a family of his own. But, as he gets older, he becomes more and more drawn to learning about his own history, when he himself was just a child kidnapped into the forest.

The Stolen Child explores the theme of identity, and the question of whether we are who we are intrinsically, or if we become who we are in response to the community in which we live. It's really thought-provoking. I give it 2 thumbs up!
Very interesting story, no need to go into details as many others already have. I listened to this on audio CD, 2 separate narrators 1 for Henry, 1 for Aniday and I enjoyed both narrations. I hated for the story to end...this took me many miles over the road and made time speed by.
I love to read, and I read a lot. I try to read a wide variety of genres that includes fiction and non-fiction. Most books are satisfactory, some dull or over-sensationalized, yet occasionally I come across a book that is more than a good read...it is a story in which the characters, the setting, the questions raised profoundly touch me long after I have closed the book and returned it to the shelf. The Stolen Child was a hauntingly beautiful surprise. I expected something interesting done with a topic that is always fascinating, changelings, but Donohue has created a story in which the magic was the least interesting part of the story. There are some who will disagree with my assessment of the book; they will find it slow going or not exciting enough. But if you want to read a book in which the writing is gorgeous, the plot minimalist, and the story sad yet touching, then you will appreciate this excellent novel.
This book uses the myth of the changeling child to explore what makes us who we are. A young boy is kidnapped by changelings and spirited away into the forest, where he lives as a never-aging member of the changeling band, waiting for his turn to re-enter the world of humans and live the life of another child who will be taken in the future. This means that he will not live the human life he was meant to live, but the life of the child he eventually replaces, perhaps a hundred years into the future. The author skillfully alternates chapters from the perspective of the taken boy who is trying to understand who he now is as a changeling, and of the human who has replaced him in his real life. The author explores the conflicts and questions that face the two beings, and we watch both of them struggle to define themselves in the circumstances in which they find themselves. By the end, we see how both have come to terms with their lives, what life lessons they have learned, and how they come to understand who they truly are.
... For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. -- W B Yeats, "The Stolen Child"
Henry Day didn't mean to run away -- he meant to give his parents a bit of a scare and to be found. He was found alright -- by a tribe of changeling children who swapped his place with one of their own and spirited him away to survive at the edge of civilization in a world of gritty magic. Hearkening as much to old Irish folklore stories of changelings as by the Yeats' poem inspired by the same folklore, Keith Donohue beautifully writes a story of mystery and identity. Read everything he writes -- Donohue never disappoints.
Interesting storyline. A child is kidnapped and replaced with a faery doppelganger. The book covers the life from both perspectives (the stolen child and the doppelganger). My parents told me I disappeared as a child and after several hours of searching they found me asleep in my crib. This was after an intensive search of the house and neighborhood. They were getting ready to drag the local creek for my body. My mom says it didn't make sense I was there all along. Makes you wonder.
Henry Day is replaced by a changeling and his life is stolen from him.

This is a very creepy novel, which provides a change from a lot of the fantasy I have recently read. There is no real happy ending, which wouldn't have been a problem with me but I felt disappointed in the ending. It just felt a bit abrupt. There is all this build up on how the real Henry Day and the Changeling are dealing with the repercussions of the switch, but then suddenly it felt over. The resolution just rang a bit hollow to me. Since it took awhile for the author to get to the end (I for sure grew a bit tired of the repetitiveness of the fairies lives in the woods), I expected much more from it.