grimread's review
1.0
I guess I would have to be a child to appreciate this book but to me it was just such a disappointment. I can't believe how stupid, how dumb all the characters in this book are. And how impossible it is to like the protagonist. And not because he is described as clumsy or accident-prone, which by the way never actually affects him because all the damage is done to other people, places, but because he has no quality, no personal trait one could like. He is just a 14-year old rich kid oblivious to the world around him. And I have no reason to hate or love him or to care about him at all. And neither does anybody else in the book even if the author would like us to believe otherwise. That includes the butler. He is just there because the kid is rich and can have one and he has to be there to expand on the clumsyness and be the reasonable and smart counterpart. I find it hard to believe that a capable butler who has dealt with this troublesome child all of his life wouldn't make better preparation for a trip or at least ask him where he is planing to go.
Maybe I was too spoiled by Artemis Fowl books, where everything even supernatural stuff makes sense. Maybe this book is written for even younger audience. But NO. You've got a 14-yo kid in a jungle with people who are trying to kidnap and KILL him, big explosions and devastation of rainforest. This is not a book for little children. This is just lazy storytelling masked as a great adventure.
Maybe I was too spoiled by Artemis Fowl books, where everything even supernatural stuff makes sense. Maybe this book is written for even younger audience. But NO. You've got a 14-yo kid in a jungle with people who are trying to kidnap and KILL him, big explosions and devastation of rainforest. This is not a book for little children. This is just lazy storytelling masked as a great adventure.
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