A review by lawbooks600
A Grimm Warning by Chris Colfer

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Representation: Black and Asian characters
Score: Five out of ten.

Well that was another disappointment.

I haven't read from Chris Colfer in months but I picked A Grimm Warning up to pass the time, hoping it would be better than the previous two instalments (A Wishing Spell and The Enchantress Returns.) It wasn't. I headed in with lowered expectations, but it was still underwhelming when I closed the last page.

It starts (more like continues) with Alex and Conner Bailey picking up after the events of the preceding book, but this time there's a twist, but it only makes the central storyline more disjointed. Conner lives on Earth, otherwise known as the Otherworld, but I'll use the first name (the last makes me cringe.) Alex lives in The Land of Stories, which includes fairies, the Fairy Godmother, fictional figures and mythical beasts, of course. The multiple 3rd person POV is an intriguing choice as it allows Colfer to tell two stories. The pacing is slow, though, with a length of more than 450 pages, but it could've been shorter if the filler pages weren't there. The protagonists don't develop. Rather, they remain the same throughout A Grimm Warning, adding to my disengagement.

I discovered The Enchantress Returns to lack diversity in my review, so I thought Colfer solved that issue, at least in A Grimm Warning, when he included a Black character, Lindy, and an Asian, Wendy, but they were gone soon enough, much to my dismay. There were so many side characters it felt like character soup and it was difficult to keep track, like Breanne 'Bree' Campbell, Rook, Mindy, Cindy and Emmerich. Not to mention the group of fairies. Even when Conner and Bree land in The Land of Stories, it felt repetitive as this is the third time this happened. Can I go somewhere else, at least? The concluding 100 pages are action-packed (where the fairy tale characters fight a French army from the 1800s) with a heartstopping finish, which is the only enjoyable section, but other than that it was tedious to read. The big reveal happens when the Masked Man is the twins' biological father, but I don't think the following three continuations would be an improvement.
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