Need help remembering a book..

[Saga]

Another topic where I provide a vague description of the book I'm trying to remember and where hopefully one of you guys has read it and can respond.

Plot went something like this: a boy, who's 13 or 14 I think, is bored with his life until a man in a suit and a hat flies into his window with an umbrella and takes the kid to a stone wall at the edge of town. They walk through the wall and end up on a gorgeous lawn in front of a big house. There's a bunch of other kids there too, who seem happy but who the main character notices something is odd about them. There's a girl he falls in love with, who's especially weird, always plays with her doll houses, and always runs off periodically in the novel. Turns out she's been cursed by the nice lady that feeds the kids breakfast every morning, to turn into a fish every X number of days or something, and she runs off to some fucked up creepy lake away in the woods behind the house and the main character finds out about it and tries to escape. Except passing through the wall throws him into some weird fog, and he stumbles back out the way he came and back into the yard of this weird ass house.

Eventually, the reader finds out the house is keeping all the kids there, and some of them are kids that were reported missing outside of this weird place and have been trapped by the house and the fog-wall for a long ass time. The girl the main character falls in love with was there for like 70 years or something. Anyway they finally manage to escape, right after being chased by the nice breakfast lady who's actually some demonic gargoyle and who chases them through the fog-wall after the house is destroyed by the boy. In the epilogue, the boy's chillin with his mom in the park, he spots an old couple (both of which were trapped with the house behind the fog-wall, one of which is the girl he loved) and there's some gay nod of mutual understanding between them or something, and the book ends.

Can anyone tell me what the title of this goddamn book is?

[Xajii]

Well whatever it is you just spoiled it for me!;_;

Wish I could help you though I must say this is the most detailed description of something you can't remember I've ever heard

[Saga]

Sorry for the spoilers. And I know. I can practically remember the whole book, just not the title. And I can't really search those 2 paragraphs in google.

[Zeb]

Clive Barker - The Thief of Always
http://www.amazon.com/Thief-Always-C...286278&sr=1-15

[Saga]

God dammit, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. Did you know the title offhand or did you search for some of what I'd mentioned in my synopsis?

[Chocoboy]

Forgot all about this book. Apparently theres a movie coming out late this year?

[Zeb]

God dammit, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. Did you know the title offhand or did you search for some of what I'd mentioned in my synopsis?

I Googled-Fued it for like two searches and didn't come up with anything, then I played a hunch on Amazon. I've read the book, but I don't remember anything about it other than its name and author. Your synopsis must have rung a bell in my long term memory banks. I probably read it in a day and forgot about it not long after it came out. I read through most of Barker's books back then.

[Saga]

I Googled-Fued it for like two searches and didn't come up with anything, then I played a hunch on Amazon. I've read the book, but I don't remember anything about it other than its name and author. Your synopsis must have rung a bell in my long term memory banks. I probably read it in a day and forgot about it not long after it came out. I read through most of Barker's books back then.

Yeah I was big into Barker, but this book was the one that stuck in my head the most and the one I enjoyed the most. Thanks again for coming up with it, amazing call on the hunch.

Also if there's a movie coming out this year that would be incredible. Wiki said there was, can't wait if that's true.

[Xajii]

oh damn I was looking for more of a younger kid's novel, Clive Barker huh.

[Shalafi]

Interesting, I swear I saw a Simpsons episode of that synopsis.

[Sylvrdragon]

Simpsons did it!

[Acturus]

Piggybacking on this thread~

I remember a book from when I was in the 6th grade or so, checked out from the school library...

The protagonist was a pre-teen girl who obsessively rolled dice. I remember two scenes from the book, in no great detail:

One, she tells herself that if she rolls anything other than a 12, she'll buy the family Christmas presents, and she rolls double-sixes, and

Two, part of a chapter makes a big deal out of her getting her first period. And no, it's not anything by Judy Bloom.

I can't remember if it was overly fantasy, or just slice of life dysfunctional family, but it's been 15 years since I read the book, and I can't remember anything more about it.