If there’s one element of our childhood that we never really grow out of, it’s the fairy tales. Whether it’s an obsession with all things magical or just addiction to nostalgia, pretty much everyone retains a fascination with these fantastical stories. 

I recently read a book called “The Book of Lost Things” that instantly became my favorite version of “twisted fairy tales” since ABC’s Once Upon a Time. 

In the book, a boy crawls through a hole in a tree to escape the despair of his life (war-torn home in England, his father’s remarriage after the death of his mother, jealousy of his new half-brother, etc.) and ends up falling Alice in Wonderland-style into a magical world inhabited by the characters in his books. However, these characters have been transformed to be twisted and frightening to reflect both the boy’s fears and the fears of anyone who has entered the world before him, and things are very quickly found to be not as they seem. 

I loved this book because I got the same sense of wonder out of it that I used to get reading fairytales as a kid- it was nice to see all the stories I was already familiar with updated and woven together in a dark, creepy, super-compelling way. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes to read, no matter what genre you normally prefer. 

Below, I’ve created three looks inspired by The Book of Lost Things:

Table of Contents

Judging by the Cover

Products: Tights- Modcloth, Shoes- Modcloth, Dress- Forever 21, Hat- ASOS, Earrings- Forever 21, Purse- Danielle Nicole

This first look is based on the cover of The Book of Lost Things. I know that “don’t judge a book by the cover” has always been a big lesson, but honestly, what else am I supposed to judge it on if I haven’t read it yet? Fortunately, the inside of this book lives up to the gorgeously illustrated cover, which is a lovely shade of red and depicts a boy reading, surrounded by black, ominously twisting vines.