Reviews with content warning for Excrement - The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

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The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett

7 reviews

theinkybaroness's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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riverofhorton's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This was my first Discworld novel, and I'm so glad I decided to get the hardback version. I will definitely be revisiting this book in the future, as well as reading more of the Discworld.

I already loved rats, but if I didn't this would have changed my mind. Especially Sardines.

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woweewhoa's review against another edition

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adventurous funny medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

A very very fun book! Knowing that this is a book for young adults honestly makes it better because Terry Pratchett very obviously has a respect for young readers and writes in a way where he is clearly not undermining them. I think this might be my favorite Discworld book so far!

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tak_everlasting's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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caitlincrtr's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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helen___'s review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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adventurous

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I know it's logical that every series will have books that are weaker than the rest, especially if said series is 41 books long. But this is the first Discworld book I've encountered that I didn't thoroughly enjoy.

The main reason for this was Malicia. She is the most obnoxious character I've read about in a long time. She refused to believe she's not in the middle of some dramatic story like in the books she reads and can not seem to grasp that this is real life and not taking things seriously could very likely result in characters dying. What frustrated me most is that not only does she does not learn anything, her treating everything as a story is justified - it's pivotal to the book's happy ending. I cannot express in words how much I hate her.

The rest of the cast of characters, though, were rather good. There's Keith, who's not as stupid as he looks but is perfectly fine to let people keep thinking that if they'll leave him alone to play his flute. Maurice the sentient cat is trying to deal with sentience and morals competing with his completely opposite "nature" as a self-centered cat, and also dealing with the guilt of something he did before he was sentient. The rats themselves are also grappling with sentence, although for them it's less "sentience vs. nature" than "sentience vs. tradition," although they do have some of the former in there as well. There are a lot of surprisingly deep themes (morality vs. nature, where the line is between creature and person) in this book about talking rats and pied piper scams.

This book also lacks a lot of the wit and humor I've come to associate with Discworld books. It does have its amusing one-liners (my favorite being when someone asks Malicia's father if he's worried something happened to her and he replies, "No, I'm worried that she's happened to someone"), but on the whole this is much more serious in tone than the other Discworld books I've read (possibly with the exception of Wintersmith). Considering that the protagonists are Keith and Malicia (children) and talking animals, I'm not surprised that this is one of the YA Discworld books, but I was surprised by how dark it is.

This really isn't a bad book. I wouldn't even say that I disliked it - I actually rather enjoyed it. Even though it wasn't what I was expecting, this book didn't go so dark that it felt out of place in the Discworld canon. But with Malicia there making me want to strangle her every time she opened her mouth, I definitely wouldn't call it one of my favorite Discworld books.

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