riddles

Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl #1) by Eoin Colfer

I give this book a 5.

Every now and then I’m curious to see what I’ve been missing in children’s fictions, and since, I’m very particular about my selections, I’m seldom let down. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from this series.

Artemis is a young genius who also happens to be the heir to a criminal dynasty that’s going broke. So Artemis decides to save the family business in the only way he can think of, which is ripping off the fairies that no one believes really exist.

I really liked Butler and Holly. The whole story was really cute, and if you don’t over think it, the little things shouldn’t get you down. I like the idea that the bad guy in this story is a little boy, but I must admit I kept hoping someone would stop to spank him at some point. (Oh no, wonder who I offended with that statement?)

In any case, I don’t think Artemis is a bad boy. I just think he’s a product of his environment, who happens to be desperate and willing to do whatever he thinks is necessary to save his way of life. The story is full of adventure, magic, and oddly enough a little sci-fi.

I recommend this to anyone willing to give it a try.

This review has been posted to GoodReads. If you’d like to obtain a copy of this book, try this link.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Review: Death of the Mad Hatter

Death of the Mad Hatter by Sarah J. Pepper

I give this book a 3 and a ½, but am indecisively bumping it down to a 3.

I’m not a traditionalist in the basic sense of the word. I appreciate things for what they are, but I was disappointed in this reading experience and probably not for the reasons you may think. Overall, I commend this author for the ingenuity of taking a classical, commonly known, story and turning it into something completely new, but beyond that, I have issues.

First off, I was expecting this story to be more New Adult than YA (not a big fan of YA, but was willing to give New Adult a try). I had so much trouble taking, what I believe was supposed to be, the serious aspects of this story seriously because of all the high school banter. For YA fans I’m sure this isn’t a problem, but for me it was.

There is more than a good amount of crazy in this story and the added darkness was great, but some of the repetition came off as annoying, and I think it was supposed to be mysterious or add to the “crazy”. Crazy I get, but sometimes even that didn’t seem to quite hit the mark. In the story, we are supposed to have an understanding that Al is tortured, but it just comes off as silly and weird playtime to me, most of the time.

The best part of the story development, to me, was the notion and significance of the “sweets” being the link to either sanity or insanity. As far as logic goes, I know it’s Wonderland and there doesn’t necessarily need to be any logic, but there were some things that either did or didn’t happen that really didn’t make sense to the overall goals of the characters.

I loved the rummperrabit and the spiders! I was not disappointed that I read this book; it really wasn’t that bad. I’m just disappointed that I didn’t like it more. I’m such a fan of all things Wonderland, but this story was only okay.

Still, I’d recommend this to anyone who likes Wonderland tales, fantasy, and or YA fiction, with the mention that this is a little dark.

This review has been posted to GoodReads. If you’d like to obtain a copy of this book, try this link.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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