Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
This book centers around Stephanie, a smart 12-year old who just inherited her uncle’s mansion, and Skulduggery, an otherworldly detective who is a living skeleton. The day after her uncle’s funeral, Stephanie gets caught up in a battle of good and evil and learns about her family’s secret past. This is an exciting book with tons of action, snarky humor and strong characters. This is a good read for boys or girls, though it is quite violent so it probably skews towards older teens. I thought it was incredibly funny and exciting and so it is a big YAY for me.
posted by Kip @ 7:07 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
I read this with interest and felt it was skewed towards younger teens, about the age of the heroine, who was twelve. Violent, perhaps, but cartoonish and fun.
Here is where I am unsure about whether or not this is a "teen" novel. Do books with middle school appeal count? I look forward to the meeting Friday where we can discuss this further.
That's a very good point, Edith. According to the award guidelines:
"'Teen'" for the award’s purpose is someone between 12-18 years of age. The book must appeal to this age group, both in respect to its characters and setting, as well as in terms of subject and theme."
We'll definitely go over these on Friday.
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Skulduggery was fun, but I didn't see it as award material. She told us, rather than showed us that her life was boring and dull. I had to suspend disbelief that she didn't know "raising Cain" but could pull Valkyrie out of her head - without any reference as to why she chose Valkyrie. I would have liked more insight into her eccentric father and his extreme forgetfulness - is that a magic thing?
There's a Bliss/Snape parallel which adds tension, and I don't know about China at all.
It started off with a noir feel, which didn't pursue - the idea is great - combining necromancy, elemental and adept magic, mythology, detective dapper, independent and spunky heroine.
I am happy to be overruled, but I vote NAY
I went back and re-read part of this and then finally finished it. In my mind, I kept comparing it to other fantasy-adventure novels, but it seemed to evade categorization with other stories I’d read. In my opinion, uniqueness counts. Plus, the main character manages to be a pain in the ass without being a pain to read. YAY.
I couldn't get inot this book - just didn't like it. Also, it reads a bit young. NAY!
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