Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.

There are other worlds than these

Charlie Reade is our hero. As much as he claims to be a regular Joe and have a past he’s not very proud of. He looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten over a bridge whose name comes up over and over again through the book, and grief drove his dad to the bottle. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and something no child should do – of his dad.

“think sometimes we know where we’re going even when we think we don’t.”

When Charlie is seventeen, he jumps to aid an old man who fell off a ladder and befriends this curmudgeon and helps his recovery at home. The old guy (voiced by Stephen King in the audio book) is Howard Bowditch and his dog (almost as old as time) is called Radar. Charlie becomes a caretaker for Mr. Bowditch over his summer holidays all with his dad’s blessing and to his surprise, he is the sole recipient of Howard’s fortune – the house on the hill, the shed, a bucket full of gold and a secret. And he also receives Radar – now ailing from what is canine old age.

In his recorded last will and testament tape, Mr. Bowditch shares his secret: that underneath the shed there is a tunnel which leads to another world and in this world there is a sundial (like the one on the book’s cover) which allows a person to turn back time and get young again. But riding the sun-dial comes with its own perils and this world where it resides is not without dangers.

So Charlie takes the dog and goes on an adventure (not after planning his escape from home to be timed alongside the time his dad went on a conference.

What comes next was fantastic. I loved every bit and while I knew that Charlie would survive (as he’s the one “writing” this story), sometimes I didn’t think he would. There’s loads of characters – Dora – who can barely speak but has a good soul and wants to make sure all travelers have nice shoes. There’s the goose girl – a beautiful princess whose mouth has been sealed shut by a curse. She can throw her voice like a ventriloquist to her trustful horse. There’s CLAUDIA – (with uppercase letters from my side as she’s so loud). The voice actor did her justice as I can still “hear” her shouting her no-nonsense words days later. Claudia is deaf and her brother and the Leah (the goose-girl)’s uncle is blind. They form the previous royal family who was thrown out in a coup when the youngest son turned to the dark side and became Jabba The Hut.

He destroyed the kingdom and it’s up to Charlie to usurp him and restore peace. Or at least that’s how the fairytale goes. The devil is in the details as they say.

Leah is fantastic as a soundless princess. There’s also the king of grasshoppers who helps and killer monarch butterflies. There’s a monster at the bottom of the well who threatens the destruction of this world and all others. And there’s magic.

And what’s more interesting is that this world has once been visited by a younger Mr. Bowditch. He’s been there and there’s traces of his passing in Claudia’s battery generators, Night lights for Dora, written signs that point towards the sun-dial. But all in all, he had the same chance to change this world’s dynamic as Charlie did but he was a coward.

“A brave man helps. A coward just gives presents.”

I loved, loved, loved the book. The unlikely hero, the redeemable past, the warnings, the moral hidden behind the layer. The book is big but it’s one I’m planning on reading to my future kids.

“You get used to the amazing, that’s all. Mermaids and IMAX, giants and cell phones. If it’s in your world, you go with it. It’s wonderful, right? Only look at it another way, and it’s sort of awful. Think Gogmagog is scary? Our world is sitting on a potentially world-ending supply of nuclear weapons, and if that’s not black magic, I don’t know what is.”

Hell, I’m so dedicated I’ll make a few kids just so I can read them this book.

my mind had been filled with my own thoughts… just as the minds of many who passed Elsa didn’t hear her songs because they were too busy to listen. That much is true about songs (and many stories) even in my own world. They speak mind to mind, but only if you listen.”