A review by ethan_bluestone
Whale Done by Stuart Gibbs

adventurous funny informative lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

2.0

I remember when Stuart Gibbs books were fun and adventurous, with hardly ever having to worry about him pushing his personal ideas and agendas. 
Sure there was always a little something here and there about climate change, something political and what not. But who cares, it hardly affected the book, and it didn't bother me and countless of others.

But in almost all of his recent books his agendas have been a HUGE focus. Which is getting very old.

I couldn't read this book without being stopped multiple times to talk about how we need to save the oceans and the animals and all sorts of random stuff. Which makes sense because this is a book about animals. But still, it was way too much, especially compared to the other books in the series. All I cared about is who blew up the whale, not who was such a villain to leave their trash on the beach.

The same thing could be said for his last Funjungle book and the tenth Spy School book, and probably the third Charlie Thorne book. (Although I'm not sure about that one, I haven't read it. So this is just a simple guess.)
I'm all for putting whatever you want in you're book. It's you're book. You can do what you want. But for fans like myself, one of my siblings​ and a couple of my friends; these books are becoming more and more disappointing and hard to enjoy.

And I've mentioned before that I reread all the Spy School books last year just to make sure that my growing dislike for this author's books wasn't because I was aging out of them. But when I reread them all I loved them as much as did the first time I read the series. 

With the inclusion of more gay characters (which are thankfully adults), and personal political beliefs, I feel like these newer books (besides Once Upon A Tim) are losing their original sense of adventure.

Which really sucks because I love this author and his books and I'm tired of writing this bad reviews because it makes it look like I don't like him or what he does. So I'm promising now that the next great Stuart Gibbs book I read, I'll make a great review about it :D

But I still want to put this out there for people with similar beliefs as myself.