Book Review - The Never Ending Story

[Galena May]

Title of the book: The Never Ending Story
Authors: Michael Ende
Series: The book by itself is not part of a series, meaning that the author wrote it as a single book, but it has been adapted into a film of the same name which was in turn followed by two more films in a series.
Genres: Fantasy (Fiction)
Short summary of the story: The story follows a boy named Bastian, who reads a book called The Neverending Story. The book is set in the magical land of Fantastica and follows the ruler, Childlike Empress, who is supposedly ill, and can only be saved by being renamed by a person who lives beyond the borders of the magical realm. The realm itself is threatened by "The Nothing", a force that can be defeated only by another character in the realm. At one point in the story, Bastian realises that he is the one who is supposed to be the chosen one. He tries to deny that but the book keeps repeating itself with a few changes which only further confirm him being the chosen one until he surrenders and decides to do his part as per the demands in the story. Following that, he enjoys it too much and starts creating hypothetical villains only to continue the story. But, with every adventure, he loses some of his human memory without realising, until he remembers only his name and his father. Later, he is needed to forget his human memories to be restored to the human world. He does get to return to the human world in the end with all his memories intact, and even lives to tell the adventures of his talk to his now changed father who had earlier neglected him, but he does that by drinking the Water of Life and having to make some major sacrifices.
Good points / bad points: Good points - It explores several themes, related to humans, like grief, destruction, greed, isolation, relationships, sacrifices, love or the lack of it, friendships, war and basic emotional needs of a human being. Bad points - It involves fantastical elements that are very close to unbelievable and can be very hyped with the use of creatures and fantasy elements that cannot exist, making it severely too unreal to enjoy, but if you do not mind that like I don't for a good plot, it is worth reading for the sake of exploring the human themes and will keep you up all night.
For me, it was a fascinating read, and after ages, something kept me glued enough and thrilled to stay up all night to finish it. I highly recommend it.