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riverofhorton's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This was my first Discworld novel, and I'm so glad I decided to get the hardback version. I will definitely be revisiting this book in the future, as well as reading more of the Discworld.
I already loved rats, but if I didn't this would have changed my mind. Especially Sardines.
I already loved rats, but if I didn't this would have changed my mind. Especially Sardines.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic
mymy_dreamer's review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Minor: Blood
raenyreads's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This was my first dive into the discworld series by Terry Pratchett and I loved it! The characters were the highlight of this book, they were detailed, highly loveable and went through some character development I wasn't expecting to get from this book. I'll definitely be reading more from discworld!
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death
Minor: Confinement, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
bluejayreads's review against another edition
adventurous
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I know it's logical that every series will have books that are weaker than the rest, especially if said series is 41 books long. But this is the first Discworld book I've encountered that I didn't thoroughly enjoy.
The main reason for this was Malicia. She is the most obnoxious character I've read about in a long time. She refused to believe she's not in the middle of some dramatic story like in the books she reads and can not seem to grasp that this is real life and not taking things seriously could very likely result in characters dying. What frustrated me most is that not only does she does not learn anything, her treating everything as a story is justified - it's pivotal to the book's happy ending. I cannot express in words how much I hate her.
The rest of the cast of characters, though, were rather good. There's Keith, who's not as stupid as he looks but is perfectly fine to let people keep thinking that if they'll leave him alone to play his flute. Maurice the sentient cat is trying to deal with sentience and morals competing with his completely opposite "nature" as a self-centered cat, and also dealing with the guilt of something he did before he was sentient. The rats themselves are also grappling with sentence, although for them it's less "sentience vs. nature" than "sentience vs. tradition," although they do have some of the former in there as well. There are a lot of surprisingly deep themes (morality vs. nature, where the line is between creature and person) in this book about talking rats and pied piper scams.
This book also lacks a lot of the wit and humor I've come to associate with Discworld books. It does have its amusing one-liners (my favorite being when someone asks Malicia's father if he's worried something happened to her and he replies, "No, I'm worried that she's happened to someone"), but on the whole this is much more serious in tone than the other Discworld books I've read (possibly with the exception of Wintersmith). Considering that the protagonists are Keith and Malicia (children) and talking animals, I'm not surprised that this is one of the YA Discworld books, but I was surprised by how dark it is.
This really isn't a bad book. I wouldn't even say that I disliked it - I actually rather enjoyed it. Even though it wasn't what I was expecting, this book didn't go so dark that it felt out of place in the Discworld canon. But with Malicia there making me want to strangle her every time she opened her mouth, I definitely wouldn't call it one of my favorite Discworld books.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Gore and Excrement
Injury to animals, poison, body horror with animal bodies
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