Personal Rating: 3.75 Stars Goodreads Rating: 3.8 Stars Content Rating: PG-13 Herein lie four quirky stories of unexpected heroes. Jebediah, the Unlikely Hero, and the Three Plagues of the Kingdom is about a coward who must confront a dragon and grapple with an ogre before finding a happy ending. Super Human is a short piece about designer babies created by genetic selection. The Fortune-Maker is a short story about a girl who struggles to find something to believe in. Fink Naggat and the Giant's Toe is about an adventurer of tiny proportions who has adventures of grand proportions. This book is not intended for children or adults, but rather for anyone who would like to hear a story, regardless of age. This book is illustrated by the author. (goodreads.com) First off, I want to say that I love this cover. I know I really need to stop picking books based solely off of their covers, but look at those colors! I love the beautiful colors mixed with the black lines of artwork and then the three boxes with more artwork. Also, that dragon is adorable and I would very much like to hug it. Okay, I’m done freaking out over the cover now. (BUT IT IS SO FREAKING CUTE AND WHIMSICAL.) I picked up this book at one of the libraries I work at while I was shelving. It was right next to a book I was putting away and the spine caught my eye. Skinny books often get looked over on the shelves and I wanted to pull this one a bit farther forward. The colors on the spine and the lack of text made me look at the cover, because you never know what hidden gems you’ll find tucked on the shelves at the library. It looked so cute and like such a quick read that I checked it out. It was definitely a quick read and highly entertaining. Since this is a conglomeration of four short stories, I’ll do like I did for Because You Love to Hate Me and review each story separately, since I like some better than others. Jebediah, the Unlikely Hero, and the Three Plagues of the Kingdom: This is definitely my favorite out of the four stories. It’s basically a fairy tale about a peasant named Jebediah and a princess named Terrina. The plot was clever and funny and the characters were adorable. What I really loved about this story was how everything was described. There wasn’t much dialogue, but it seriously didn’t need it because the narration was hilarious. I don’t know how best to describe how wonderful this story was other than saying that you really ought to just go out and read it. Super Sense: This was the shortest story in the book and it almost felt more like an essay than a story, but it was still good. It made me think about what it would be like to have enhanced senses, like Superman, and how difficult that would actually be. Like, there are some smells I can barely stand now, I can’t imagine having a super nose when confronted with a public restroom. It was a good short piece and it left me wanting more of this character and her struggles. The Fortune Maker: I have to say it, I just didn’t like this one. It made me sad and a teeny bit offended, though I doubt that was the author’s intention. It’s about a woman named Renee who is looking for something more in her life and she’s tried all of the religions and found them wanting, believing them to be about loving your neighbor unless you disagree with your neighbor, which is definitely true of some people and religions and some branches of religions. As someone who was brought up Christian and brought up to “love thy neighbor” no matter what they do or believe (though I will admit to struggling to do this at times), I felt a bit prickly after reading this one. I wanted to talk to Renee: “Let me tell you about Jesus and how He loves you! Please? Come to my church, I want you to meet my friends!” But, you know, she’s in a book so it’s a bit hard to communicate. Still a well written story, but it left me feeling sad. Of course, every story is not written for every person so that’s okay. Fink Nagget and the Giant’s Toe: I thought this story was really fun. It reminded me of when my siblings and I were little and my dad used to tell us stories. He came up with the craziest characters and the silliest scenarios for those characters and the adventures of Fink Nagget were similar. Fink’s house gets crushed by a giant, all except the bathroom, which fits between the giant’s toes. Then Fink goes and lives on the giant’s toe for some time and encounters all sorts of creatures and adventures. It’s totally ridiciously and completely fun to read about. All together, four entertaining and thoughtful stories with some sweet illustrations to go with. It’s such a short read (only about 50 pages) with such fun writing that I can’t help but recommend it to anyone looking for a bit of fun. Mostly because of the story about Jebediah, but the other stories were really well written too and worth the read. It was refreshing to have brand new stories that aren’t a retelling of anything and that have plots I’ve never heard before. Plus, the cover is freaking fantastic. So, if you come across this book or feel like ordering a copy (I checked, it’s on Amazon if you’re interested), I definitely suggest giving it a read. Thanks for reading my review! I’m off to catch a ride on a giant’s toe so I’ll see you later! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26219733-tales-of-whimsy
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First off, I want to say that I won an ARC copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway so thank you to Goodreads and whoever arranged the giveaway for this book. Because it is an ARC copy and technically incomplete I’m not supposed to quote anything from it. Which I don’t normally do anyway and probably couldn’t do because I’d have to censor half the words anyway.
Okay, with that out of the way, welcome back to another Eoin Colfer-cetric blog post. I promise I write about more than Eoin Colfer books and book to movie adaptations. He’s just been very busy lately and I’ve been excited about what he’s been doing. Especially when I heard my favorite children’s author was writing a fantasy adult book and I an adult (ish) now! I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book and then I won it in a giveaway and I was ecstatic. The summary sounds a little funky, but still interesting, right? A dragon living in a Louisiana swamp in modern day? Sounds fun to me! One thing I was not expecting was just how adult this adult novel would be. Reading the first page I was gasping in shock like a little old lady. Such language! I’m ashamed of you, Mr. Colfer! And my goodness, such violence and crudeness! (Imagine me tsking in disapproval and wagging my finger.) But I guess it is a book for grown ups so I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe I am not as grown up as previously believed. But that’s okay with me. Apart from the language, repeated references to, uh, unmentionable body parts, and the insane violence, this book did have a fun plot and colorful characters. Sure, only, like, three of those characters were women and they never spoke to each other, but no one ever accused Eoin Colfer of regularly passing the Bechdel Test. But anyhow… the plot was fun. As far as characters go, there are three big ones you need to worry about. Vern, Squib, and Regence Hooke. Vern being the dragon, Squib being the spunky kid, and Hooke being the nasty villain. And I do mean nasty. Regence Hooke really doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. At all. But that is fairly typical of a Colfer villain, now that I think about it. Not that I’ve read everything by Eoin Colfer, but Opal Koboi from Artemis Fowl is evil through and through, as well as Hugo Bonvilain from Airman. Hooke is violent, uncaring, and a creep to boot. Seriously, he’s vile. And he’s the sort of bad guy who is actually really good at being bad so he keeps on getting away with things and keeps getting back up no matter how many times he’s knocked down. A completely hateable villain who had, probably, the most “screen time” of any of the characters. I don’t know why we saw things so frequently from his perspective, I would have preferred more from Vern or Squib, actually. But, to be fair, it did make me really root for the good guys to have such a disgusting bad guy. Everett “Squib” Moreau is your basic teenage boy. He’s a bit of a troublemaker, or at least he was in the past. Now he’s on the sorta straight and narrow. I mean, he does start his problems by planning to work for a smuggler. But that doesn’t last long before he gets a position working for a dragon. Although, now that I think about it, he was breaking laws when he was working for the dragon too because Vern often sends him to buy alcohol and Squib is only fifteen. But apart from that he’s on the straight and narrow and he’s going to make his mother proud. Squib wasn’t that interesting of a character. He made a few good plans, but there were several times when he was just a damsel in distress, waiting to be saved by the heroic dragon. I feel like he was the Phil Coulson (an Avengers character) of Highfire: he was mostly there to show us how an average Joe handles something supernatural happening. Speaking of the supernatural, let’s talk about Vern. He’s a seven foot tall dragon with a love of alcohol and television. He’s rightly bitter about the human race and he spends all of his time hiding out in his shack in the swamp. Despite his terrible language and crass attitude, I actually liked Vern fairly well. He was entertaining and the perfect mixture of mean and nice to be a mentor character. Kind of like an irritable, Southern, cussing, drinking Yoda. Like, Hooke, he was also incredibly violent, but generally toward the bad guys… so it was kind of okay? Not that incinerating people is ever a moral thing to do, but this is fiction. And he is a dragon. And they were really mean bad guys. Highfire was not my favorite read, and certainly not my favorite Eoin Colfer book, but it was highly entertaining. I wasn’t quite prepared for all of the language in it, but that’s probably because I’m sheltered and an indignant old lady at heart. My biggest criticism is, of course, that there needs to be more female characters who are actually involved in the plot. I always love dragons though, so I guess I’ll put up with it. If this sounds like something you would want to read the expected publication date is January 28, 2020. I’m not sure that I recommend it or not. I suppose I might recommend it to a very specific person, but not in general. Thanks for reading! TTFN! P.S. Sorry about the weird formatting of this post, I fear Weebly has made some updates and I don't fully understand them, so we might be stuck with the new format for a while. Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44890077-highfire?from_search=true&qid=hxWsCsFd08&rank=1 Personal Rating: 4 Stars
Goodreads Rating: 4.12 Stars Content Rating: PG One week after their eleventh birthday, the Fowl twins--scientist Myles, and Beckett, the force of nature--are left in the care of house security (NANNI) for a single night. In that time they befriend a troll who has clawed his way through the earth's crust to the surface. Unfortunately for the troll, he is being chased by a nefarious nobleman and an interrogating nun, who both need the magical creature for their own gain, as well as a fairy-in-training who has been assigned to protect him. The boys and their new troll best friend escape and go on the run. Along the way they get shot at, kidnapped, buried, arrested, threatened, killed (temporarily), and discover that the strongest bond in the world is not the one forged by covalent electrons in adjacent atoms, but the one that exists between a pair of twins. (goodreads.com) Can you imagine, for a moment, the intense excitement I felt last year when I found out that Eoin Colfer was writing a spin off series about Artemis Fowl’s younger brothers? If you are having trouble imagining, maybe you need to go back and re-read some of my other posts about the Artemis Fowl series. Now, can you imagine how over the moon I was? My favorite childhood series, which ended in 2012, getting a new book?! Are you kidding me? That’s AMAZING! Was it written just to hype up the Artemis Fowl movie (about which I have mixed feelings) that’s coming out in May 2020 (yeah, it was supposed to be in August 2019, I know, it’s a whole thing, we’ll discuss it some other time)? Was it just because an appropriate time in real life has passed for the Fowl Twins, who were four in the last Artemis book, to be old enough for their own adventure? I don’t know the answer to either of these questions, but I do know I had a heck of a lot of fun reading this thing. The first thing you need to know about this book is that it was totally written for people who have already read Artemis Fowl. And I mean all eight of them, pal. No sliding into this book without knowing all of the crazy shenanigans that happened to Artemis and company. While this book is entertaining on its own, it doesn’t make a ton of sense without having read the original series. Especially since you don’t even meet Artemis’ brothers until The Time Paradox (the sixth book). So do yourself a favor and read the original series before you go and complain that this one doesn’t make any sense. The Fowl Twins will try to convince you that it can work as a stand alone, seeing as there are hardly any of the original characters beyond reference in this, but there are far too many references to jokes throughout the series and far too much already complete world building for you to go into this thing blind. Just take my word for it. So moving on, I’m going to assume you have done the right thing and read all eight books of my favorite childhood series, got it? Good. (I won’t give any major spoilers, but there will be a few, so be aware of that.) As someone who has read the Artemis Fowl series countless times, obsessed over it, and even written terrible fanfiction for it (no, I’m not sharing), I went out and purchased this book the first day it was available. Sure, I could have preordered, but then I would have had to wait for it to ship. I mean, I didn’t read it until a month after it came out because I was working on NaNoWriMo anyway, but I at least had it in my hands. When I got home from Barnes and Noble I literally skipped from my car to my front door. Did this book live up to my expectations? Well, sort of. Like I said, you need to have read the original series (and probably loved it) to enjoy this book. If I hadn’t done that then I probably wouldn’t have cared about this book at all or I would have disliked it. Loving the first series as much as I do, I had so much fun with The Fowl Twins. It was a bit of a slow start, I will admit, and it seemed rather repetitive throughout. They ended up in several inescapable situations that they just kept on escaping from. Pretty much the plot of this book was “Myles and Beckett Fowl get captured and escape and get captured and escape and get captured again and escape again”. With considerable flare each time, but still. So, the plot wasn’t as focused as each plot in the books of the first series. Artemis always had a goal. He was always up to something, causing trouble, or saving the world and then his plans would get derailed by fairies and he would have to fix things. Myles and Beckett were just along for the ride, they weren’t actively up to anything besides, well, escaping bad guys. But that didn't mean that it wasn't a heck of a lot of fun watching them escape. Let’s talk characters. Myles and Beckett you should already know. Artemis Fowl’s younger brothers. Myles is following in big bro’s footsteps by being an obnoxious know-it-all child prodigy and Beckett is a more hands on fellow, who acts more like an actual child than either of his brothers ever did. I was worried Myles would be just another Artemis, who can think his way out of everything and is smarter than everyone else in the room and knows it. And he was very similar to his brother, but still different. Whereas Artemis starts out as a devious little punk with no regard for anyone except maybe his mother, father, and Butler, and he eventually learns about the truly important things, Myles starts off knowing about the important stuff in life. Sure, he’s condescending and rude and not always very nice, but we get to see there’s more to him than just a mastermind with big plans. I liked having Beckett in the picture so that we could see that Myles has someone he respects as his equal (maybe not mentally, but as a person) right off the bat. And though I have some concerns for his future, he seems to be much more of a Ravenclaw, seeking knowledge first, than a cunning, ambitious Slytherin. Then there’s Beckett. He is not like his brothers. Where Artemis and Myles wear suits and talk equations, Becket runs around in shorts and a T-shirt and a necktie named Gloop and talks about, well, anything and everything. Now, it has been a while since I was eleven, but if you ask me, Beckett is much more like the eleven year olds I know than either of the other Fowl boys. He loves doing exciting things and running around blowing stuff up. He’s always up for the next adventure, though he doesn’t always considered the possible ramifications of going on that adventure. I think he’s a great addition to the Fowl story line and he balances out Myles nicely. I do worry that Eoin Colfer will only use Beckett as a balance, based off of how much less “screen time” he got than his twin. I think the next book should be more Beckett focused, since this one was more focused on Myles. I don’t want this to turn into the adventures of mini-Artemis with a fun loving guy hanging around. So, Mr. Colfer, more Beckett please. And, of course, there are fairy characters in this as well. Not as many as we are used to, perhaps, but there were still fairies. The main one being Lazuli Heitz, who serves as not only our fairy character, but also the girl character (Eoin, I'd love more girl characters in your books, thanks). She didn’t have as much “screen time” as I would have liked either and as a result, we didn’t get to know her all that well. One of the remarkable things about the first Artemis Fowl books is that Holly and Artemis are playing on opposite sides, but we’re still cheering for both of them. That conflict helped flesh out their characters and helped the readers get to know them. With Lazuli, we just see a fairy who is trying to do her job and comes across a strange set of circumstances. I’m hoping that we will get to know her more in the next book. I won’t say much about the baddies, because spoilers, but I found them both highly entertaining. I was a little confused about one of their motives. One of them had a clear objective, but the other was cloaked in mystery and I wasn’t sure what their plan was really. Like, I kinda got it, but not really. I’m not sure if either of these villains will return (though for one of them it is highly likely), but if they do I’d like the one with the foggy motives to explain themselves a bit more. I have so much more that I could talk about for this book, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who will read it and I don’t want to analyse it too much. Regardless of my nitpicking, I really did love this book and delving back into the world of the Fowls and the fairies. It was nostalgic and exciting and I can hardly wait until next year when the sequel comes out. But don’t worry, you won’t have to wait a year for more of Colfer’s craziness. When the movie comes out, we’ll talk Fowl once again. Image sources: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39816061-the-fowl-twins https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44286889-the-fowl-twins |
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