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A review by pantsyreads
Underdog by Markus Zusak
3.0
(Review originally posted on my livejournal account: http://intoyourlungs.livejournal.com/35548.html)
Why I Read It: It's Markus Zusak. In 2009, I read and fell in love with The Book Thief and to this day I consider it one of my all-time favourite books. In 2010, I read I Am The Messenger and I *also* consider that book an all-time favourite.
Underdog was Zusak's debut novel, and it definitely reads like one (as in, I believe it's Zusak's weakest novel in his body of work), but it's not wholly unenjoyable.
Not a whole lot happens in Underdog. It reads much more like an introduction to the series and not a whole lot more. There's a lot of Cameron musing about things, like his family, about how he would "treat a girl right" (this is something that comes up a lot throughout the series), and how him and his brother do stupid shit all the time.
My favourite part of the novel was reading about his and Cameron's brother-brother relationship. They're thick as thieves and that really came off the pages. My least favourite part? At the end of every chapter, Cameron would describe his dreams to the reader and they just didn't do anything for me. Some of them were a less-than subtle metaphor for what was going on in Cameron's life, or they just felt largely unneeded.
Why I Read It: It's Markus Zusak. In 2009, I read and fell in love with The Book Thief and to this day I consider it one of my all-time favourite books. In 2010, I read I Am The Messenger and I *also* consider that book an all-time favourite.
Underdog was Zusak's debut novel, and it definitely reads like one (as in, I believe it's Zusak's weakest novel in his body of work), but it's not wholly unenjoyable.
Not a whole lot happens in Underdog. It reads much more like an introduction to the series and not a whole lot more. There's a lot of Cameron musing about things, like his family, about how he would "treat a girl right" (this is something that comes up a lot throughout the series), and how him and his brother do stupid shit all the time.
My favourite part of the novel was reading about his and Cameron's brother-brother relationship. They're thick as thieves and that really came off the pages. My least favourite part? At the end of every chapter, Cameron would describe his dreams to the reader and they just didn't do anything for me. Some of them were a less-than subtle metaphor for what was going on in Cameron's life, or they just felt largely unneeded.