Our Child of the Stars
As seen:
By Stephen Cox
avg rating
3 reviews
In this magical, bewitching debut, Molly and Gene Myers’ marriage is on the brink of collapse. Then a child arrives, with a remarkable appearance. Will he bring them together, or tear their whole world apart?
Molly and Gene Myers were happy, until tragedy blighted their hopes of children. During the years of darkness and despair, they each put their marriage in jeopardy, but now they are starting to rebuild their fragile bond.
Then the Meteor crashes into Amber Grove, devastating the small New England town – and changing their lives for ever. Molly, a nurse, caught up in the thick of the disaster, is given care of a desperately ill patient rescued from the wreckage: a sick boy with a remarkable appearance, an orphan who needs a mother. And soon the whole world will be looking for him. Cory’s arrival has changed everything. And the Myers will do anything to keep him safe.‘Part ET, part Wonder, part Snow Child, it has the same combination of science fiction and heart-tugging tenderness that Stephen King does so well’ Grazia
‘Strong and generous’ Daily Mail
‘Big-hearted’ Financial Times
‘Wholly fresh and intensely gripping’ Juliet McKenna
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Similar to E.T. and sometimes a tad too fantastical! However descriptions of scenes excellent lots of love between the covers.
Our Child of the Stars
Stephen Cox
****
It is the year of the moon landings and Woodstock when a meteor crashes into a lake just outside a small town in America. Or so the authorities would have everybody believe. But something not quite right and questions are not being answered satisfactorily. Enter the Myers, a childless couple living in the town and struggling to keep their marriage alive. Molly works at the local hospital and she knows that the official story is a load of nonsense as she has been put in charge of looking after Cory, a purple-tentacled alien child who was rescued from the wreckage. When the authorities start to suspect that the hospital may be hiding something from them, the Myers make the decision to take Cory and run.
I am not a great fan of science fiction but I quite enjoyed this book, which almost certainly means that SF afficionados are not going to like it at all. There is no real depth to it whatsoever, I just found it quite cute. I did think that the scenes where the family were trying to escape from the authorities were almost chilling in their intensity and the author did a good job of envisioning the lengths the establishment might go to and portraying the fear that is instilled in the people who are trying to hide.
My main criticism is that it went on a bit too long and became very repetitive. There is only so much variety that you can have when trying to hide a purple-tentacled alien from the world. There is certainly nothing deep and meaningful about the book, which isn’t a problem if you just want an escape from reality, but may leave you wondering why you bothered if you prefer a book to give your mind some exercise.
Whilst I enjoyed this book, I fully understand that many people might not. I thought it was quite cute, others may well think it is just plain stupid. That makes it very difficult to make a recommendation so I think it is “make your own mind up” time.
A sci fi/fantasy about an alien boy who came to earth. After reading about what Cory looked like I put the book down, thinking it wasn’t for me. After a few days I thought I wasn’t being fair on the author, so gave it another go. I really like the author’s style of writing, and there were some moving situations within the story. However, I was unable to get beyond being reminded of the film E.T. and its parallels to this story throughout the book.
