Reviews

I am so out of the age range for this book - but I still enjoyed it weirdly enough.

I am not sure what age range the author aimed for though, because the protagonist is 12, the comic style writing with huge random capital letters and a lot of pictures suggest 8-10 but the story is weirdly dark for a children's book.

Like: There is revolution happening, a lot of people are dying, there is essentially war happening and most of the main characters end up dead by the end of the book, some in more gruesome way than others at that - someone gets burned to death, someone sacrifices themselves by blowing themselves up along with the beasts and someone is stabbed to death in front of the protagonist The book does have a nice ending but at the same time so many characters die that it's kind of soured.

I also felt that the beginning took a little bit too long to pick up but once it did it ended up rushing towards the end- I know that the ending is supposed to be action packed to keep you on your toes and whatnot but there were so many things happening at once it was at times hard to follow and easy to tune out, so I can't imagine how a child would be able to follow and keep attention there.

All in all, this was still a surprisingly good book, I had a few good laughs, the protagonist is likeable, the villain plot twist was interesting and I don't suppose that a child would see it coming so it's a nice surprise for them and the jokes are good - though there are just a few too many poop and fart jokes for me (seriously who decided that kids like poop and fart jokes and that they need to be all over kids media because kids find them funny)- some might fly over their head but some were clearly nods to the parents listening to the book with a child or reading it to them lol

Good book, not as good as Dahl imo though.

ruthie_the_librarian's review against another edition

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1.0

This was a bedtime read with my 9 year old son.
I hesitate to ever say a book is bad, because people like different things, different styles of writing and different types of story, but honestly, this book was *very* hard to read aloud every night. I had been looking forward to a jolly, rambunctious adventure story, but what we had instead was an incredibly dark, plodding tale that just left me cold.

I can understand Walliams wanting to try a different style, but this felt like a book for 8-12 year olds, but with a darkness more suited to young adult novels.

The writing also left a lot to be desired. The constant use of words (Clonk...thud...ping...clank) to describe sounds drove me INSANE. Maybe a little sprinkling of that is fun. But if you're reading it aloud, it's honestly hideous to read because for the most part, they aren't even funny noises, and you're just repeating clonks and zaps and all the noises, over and over. Towards the end of the book, if my son wasn't looking over my shoulder at the page, I missed the sounds out as I was so heartily sick of them.

The story itself is royalty, and revolution, in a dark (literally) dystopian future. There are magical fantasy elements, there's torture, there's action, there's adventure, there's a clear baddie, and a strange band of misfit elderly women who come to the rescue...they sound like they could have been a redeeming element, don't they? Sadly they weren't.

I did like the character of Mite, but she's barely in the story. Most of all I liked the Octobut, but again, he's just a side character. Sadly, I found most of the conversations stilted, and lacking in real emotion, and this was disappointing because I have very much enjoyed Walliams' books in the past, and I think one of his skills is in rustling up really great characters.

My son said he did sort of enjoy it, he thought it showed an imagination at work. But I'm afraid I really didn't enjoy it.

pamgould's review against another edition

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3.0

Took a lot for me to read right to the end.
Quite a dark and miserable story all the way through

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