The day is saved, but not the book
Snotty Saves the Day: The History of Arcadia
by Tod Davies
The phrase "fairy tale" gets bandied about a lot in this book, which I suppose is why I requested it from LibraryThing Early Reviewers in the first place. The problem is, that when you purposefully try to create a fairy tale, to join the canon created by the Brothers Grimm all the way to L. Frank Baum and C.S. Lewis, you're more than likely to fail. In fact, the approach here is so obvious and cynical to me, in how it took parts of Oz and Wonderland and Narnia and Phantom Tollbooth, and overlaying a (possibly original) meta story on top of it. There's nothing in the book I found to be unique to the world, and nothing sparked my imagination. Despite it being only 200 pages, I found it hard to get through. And it's not that it's badly written, it's just rather lifeless and uninspiring.
It probably doesn't help that the book constantly tells us that Snotty is a horrible person, a terrible hero... but I don't really believe that. Snotty doesn't ever do anything that's really that bad, unless you think being a drug dealer automatically makes someone a terrible, awful person. Snotty's not likable, but no one in this book is, because no one gets any real development. You can't tell me Snotty betraying a "friend" is a big deal when the two know each other for less than 20 pages and barely interact in that time.
The length of this book works against character building in so many ways. Snotty's transformation is quick and really just adds to the disbelief that Snotty was a bad person in the first place. We move quickly from situation to situation and ultimately all the big transitions have to be magically induced rather than have the book engage in actual character development.
What does the book engage in? Footnotes and editor's notes and a bibliography and ads and the creation of a another world on top of the central story. It's cute, and the footnote concept can be done well, but in this case it doesn't add much to the Snotty story, only hinting at a different, possibly more interesting story which may or may not be told in a sequel/companion volume.
Overall I found this book frustraing, because the writing wasn't bad and the writer clearly has imagination, but they couldn't make it interesting, probably because it was a pastiche of other, greater fairy tales.
by Tod Davies
The phrase "fairy tale" gets bandied about a lot in this book, which I suppose is why I requested it from LibraryThing Early Reviewers in the first place. The problem is, that when you purposefully try to create a fairy tale, to join the canon created by the Brothers Grimm all the way to L. Frank Baum and C.S. Lewis, you're more than likely to fail. In fact, the approach here is so obvious and cynical to me, in how it took parts of Oz and Wonderland and Narnia and Phantom Tollbooth, and overlaying a (possibly original) meta story on top of it. There's nothing in the book I found to be unique to the world, and nothing sparked my imagination. Despite it being only 200 pages, I found it hard to get through. And it's not that it's badly written, it's just rather lifeless and uninspiring.
It probably doesn't help that the book constantly tells us that Snotty is a horrible person, a terrible hero... but I don't really believe that. Snotty doesn't ever do anything that's really that bad, unless you think being a drug dealer automatically makes someone a terrible, awful person. Snotty's not likable, but no one in this book is, because no one gets any real development. You can't tell me Snotty betraying a "friend" is a big deal when the two know each other for less than 20 pages and barely interact in that time.
The length of this book works against character building in so many ways. Snotty's transformation is quick and really just adds to the disbelief that Snotty was a bad person in the first place. We move quickly from situation to situation and ultimately all the big transitions have to be magically induced rather than have the book engage in actual character development.
What does the book engage in? Footnotes and editor's notes and a bibliography and ads and the creation of a another world on top of the central story. It's cute, and the footnote concept can be done well, but in this case it doesn't add much to the Snotty story, only hinting at a different, possibly more interesting story which may or may not be told in a sequel/companion volume.
Overall I found this book frustraing, because the writing wasn't bad and the writer clearly has imagination, but they couldn't make it interesting, probably because it was a pastiche of other, greater fairy tales.