Redwall by Brian Jacques
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I has been probably 30 years since I read this book last and I wanted to give it a go as an adult to see how it held up for me. If I am being honest, I had a hard time reading this one. I am not sure exactly why. It was well written overall, but perhaps the story felt a bit too simple relative to how long the book is?
The book is pretty long, clocking in at just around 400 pages (for the version I read) for what amounts to basically a fairytale or myth. The story is very simple where you have a young mouse setting out on his "hero's journey" to reclaim the lost sword (and shield!) of Martin the Warrior. Everything seems to happen though at a very surface level. Matthias is sent on quest after quest to find the next piece of his equipment, first getting a scabbard, then a shield, and then ultimately the sword itself. He meets plenty of people along the way and has to make friends, but he largely just sort of meets the characters and then bullies them into friendship.
The whole thing kinda felt like it could've been shortened up a bit from the fetch quest and instead brought to look at Matthias himself. He very quickly transitioned into a "warrior" without any sort of proper training and there aren't many personal challenges that he has to overcome in the story. There were hints of some sort of magic or mystical connection to the former hero Martin, but those come and go in a few sentences and are never fully explained or explored.
My second reading also had me quite surprised at how violent the book was. There were quite a number of fairly graphic death scenes. Nothing gory, but they definitely surprised me should this have been read by an 8-10 year old for example.
I'll be honest, rose colored glasses became a bit tarnished on this one.
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My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I has been probably 30 years since I read this book last and I wanted to give it a go as an adult to see how it held up for me. If I am being honest, I had a hard time reading this one. I am not sure exactly why. It was well written overall, but perhaps the story felt a bit too simple relative to how long the book is?
The book is pretty long, clocking in at just around 400 pages (for the version I read) for what amounts to basically a fairytale or myth. The story is very simple where you have a young mouse setting out on his "hero's journey" to reclaim the lost sword (and shield!) of Martin the Warrior. Everything seems to happen though at a very surface level. Matthias is sent on quest after quest to find the next piece of his equipment, first getting a scabbard, then a shield, and then ultimately the sword itself. He meets plenty of people along the way and has to make friends, but he largely just sort of meets the characters and then bullies them into friendship.
The whole thing kinda felt like it could've been shortened up a bit from the fetch quest and instead brought to look at Matthias himself. He very quickly transitioned into a "warrior" without any sort of proper training and there aren't many personal challenges that he has to overcome in the story. There were hints of some sort of magic or mystical connection to the former hero Martin, but those come and go in a few sentences and are never fully explained or explored.
My second reading also had me quite surprised at how violent the book was. There were quite a number of fairly graphic death scenes. Nothing gory, but they definitely surprised me should this have been read by an 8-10 year old for example.
I'll be honest, rose colored glasses became a bit tarnished on this one.
View all my reviews