BagEndBooks

I'm not sure whether I want to give this book five stars or one. Therefore I settled on three stars.

Almost the entire first part of the book had me prepared to give the book five stars, but then Bastian arrived in Fantastica. Even then, I still thought it was worth at least four stars as Bastian changed his appearance, met Grograman, found Atreyu and Falkor, and started on a quest. The reason why I didn't like this part of the story as well was because of Bastian's lost memories. I didn't like that very well, but I was still enjoying the story.

Then the worst thing that can happen in a story happened; Bastian started to 'shrink' (for lack of a better word for the opposite of character growth.) I know it was the main plot-point for this part of the story, but it's something that I just can't abide. I mean, a few character-growth-slipups are acceptable, but when a main-character's character degenerates as much as Bastian's did (or as much as Katniss did in 'Mockingjay') then the story isn't going anywhere, and the characters become unlikable.

So all-in-all, if the author had kept Bastian growing, or at least not made him shrink, then this book could have gotten four stars at least, and maybe five, but because of that flaw it gets three, and I almost only gave it two.