Stardust is about a young man who has fallen in love with a rather stuck-up girl from his home village and tells her he will do anything for her. She doesn't believe him, so when they see a falling star, he promises he will go and find that star and bring it back to her. This quest leads him into the lands of Faerie. There, he encounters creatures that help him, but also ones that are trying to find the star for their own purposes - such as the Lilim, who want to cut out the star's heart because it will give them back their youth. The star, however, turns out to be a rather stubborn young lady who does not take kindly to being captured as a gift for another woman far away; and then there is still the matter of the sons of the late Lord of Stormhold, who each want to get their hands on an object the star is carrying to become the next lord themselves. 
 After seeing the movie for the second time a while ago, I decided I really wanted to read the book... and now I have, and I loved it. I love Neil Gaiman's writing style, I love his characters and their relationships, I love that touch of realism that's there amidst the allusions to other storys and fairy-tales, the way 'the real world' and the fantasy world co-exist alongside one another in Stardust, coming together in the town of Wall. Tristran and Yvaine are wonderful and so is their relationship and the way it develops; Tristran is so delightfully dense when it comes to some matters and I love Yvaine's spirit. The other characters, however, are just as thought-out and all have a certain amount of depth, which isn't something one sees very often in fairy-tale-like stories. 'A fairy-tale for adults' is pretty much how I would describe Stardust and it's a fairy-tale all adults should read.