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A review by aotora
The Beast of Buckingham Palace by David Walliams
5.0
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.
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.