Synopsis: Oscar winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro and New York Times bestselling author Cornelia Funke have come together to transform del Toro’s hit movie Pan’s Labyrinth into an epic and dark fantasy novel for readers of all ages, complete with haunting illustrations and enchanting short stories that flesh out the folklore of this fascinating world.
This spellbinding tale takes readers to a sinister, magical, and war-torn world filled with richly drawn characters like trickster fauns, murderous soldiers, child-eating monsters, courageous rebels, and a long-lost princess hoping to be reunited with her family.
A brilliant collaboration between masterful storytellers that’s not to be missed.
Review: I’m a big fan of Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s such a beautiful film in the way of art design as well as thematically. I stumbled across a novelized version written by Cornelia Funke who I’ve been a fan of since I was a kid. I really enjoyed the way she wrote out this story. There are bits of insight we get from the novel narration that we don’t get to experience in the film. We also get little stories in between some chapters. This really helps flesh out other characters in the main story, and they’re just fun to read. I don’t know if they are stories that come from Latinx lore, or if it’s just made up backstories, but they were nice additions. There were some cool illustrations, but they weren’t the focal point of this version of the story. That’s kind of a bummer, because the creatures in the movie are amazing to look at. I wish they had come out with a fully illustrated edition because that would be beautiful. My only other gripe is that the book’s appearance makes it easy to mistake it for a children’s/middle grade book. The story is not for kids. It’s just intended to be darker than that demographic can handle. That’s why the movie is rated R. There’s murder and torture, and some of the creatures can be very scary. I could see some naive parent handing this book to their child because they don’t know what it is. The last thing I’ll say is that I want to get a Spanish copy of Pan’s Labyrinth. The movie was originally in Spanish, and there is some Spanish peppered within this book, but the story is largely written in English. I understand that, and I haven’t looked into whether there is a Spanish version, but I would like to get a copy in Spanish if at all possible.
Beautiful written version of a fantastic movie. Great for anyone who might not own the film, but would like to have some form of the story in hand.
4 howls
Comments