A review by bottomofthebookshelf
Disneyland Hostage by Eric Wilson

2.0

This was an odd book, not gonna lie. I got it because I was interested in reading a mystery set in Disneyland, but this wasn’t for me. It’s listed as a children’s mystery but some of the themes are pretty mature such as fire arms, terrorism, and execution. So it reads like a middle grade level book, but with added violence. I also didn’t like the main character and didn’t really get a sense of how old she was. One scene she’s saying she can’t wait to tell her friends she met the real Goofy (just a cast member in a costume), then the next her aunt is telling her to go explore Disneyland by herself. Is she 7 or is she a teenager?? Another big issue I had is that more than half of the characters just randomly because friends with the main character and her aunt, then stuck around the whole story. An example of this is the man they meet on the airplane to L.A. and then proceed to spend their entire vacation with, even when he’s sketchy af. The interactions between characters just didn’t feel natural and I found myself laughing at some of the silly phrases in this book, ex: “There’s no way I can win an argument with her, so I just sat back and listened to my sweat splash from my forehead.” lol wut. The only positive thing I can say about this book is I enjoyed the Disneyland setting as I’m really into the history of the park. It was cool hearing about the rides/attractions that were still there in the 80’s. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this book to people of any age.