Un Lun Dun

I bought this book by mistake, having wanted to read something by Mieville for a while but not having realised it was his "young adult" novel. No matter - I loved it anyway. He did a beautiful job of keeping the language simple without ever seeming to talk down to the reader, and the plot uses a certain degree of naivety on the part of its teenage protagonists, without ever making them seem stupid or clueless. It's also a great, wild fantasy novel that manages to say rather a lot about the real London that's only ever in the background of the book.

I bought this book by mistake, having wanted to read something by Mieville for a while but not having realised it was his "young adult" novel. No matter - I loved it anyway. He did a beautiful job of keeping the language simple without ever seeming to talk down to the reader, and the plot uses a certain degree of naivety on the part of its teenage protagonists, without ever making them seem stupid or clueless. It's also a great, wild fantasy novel that manages to say rather a lot about the real London that's only ever in the background of the book.