The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Published 2006 · 480 pages · 95,000 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Coming-of-Age, Fantasy, Literary Fiction
How hard is The Book of Lost Things to read?
The Book of Lost Things scores 28 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
- Literary vocabulary with fairy-tale register and some archaic diction.
- Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
- Abstraction: 32 out of 100
- Fairy-tale allegory for grief that operates on multiple levels.
- Information density: 38 out of 100
- Rich narrative layered with psychological symbolism.
- Narrative indirection: 28 out of 100
- Embedded fairy tales mirror the protagonist's inner state.
- Symbolic density: 40 out of 100
- Every fairy tale functions as psychological allegory.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Dark subversions of fairy tales create tonal irony.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- David's return is earned but tinged with permanent loss.
- Structural complexity: 28 out of 100
- Frame narrative with embedded fairy-tale retellings.
How The Book of Lost Things is regarded
The Book of Lost Things holds a literary regard score of 36 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.