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A review by reanne
Peter and the Starcatchers: Peter and the Starcatchers / Peter and the Shadow Thieves / Peter and the Secret of Rundoon by Greg Call, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson
Did not finish book.
I got halfway through with this book before I decided to stop inflicting it on myself.
This book is so boring. I was not expecting the entire first half to take place on ships out in the ocean, but it does, and it’s super boring. By the halfway mark, they’d finally washed up on an island, but by then I was sick of the book for other reasons.
I didn’t like any of the characters. I was least disinterested in Molly’s dad because he was competent and seemed like a decent person, but he apparently wasn’t much of an important character, as he only appeared in a couple scenes. I really didn’t like or care about any of the others at all. They were dull as bricks.
Watching Peter and Molly (and other good guys) constantly fail and be foiled was tiresome and quickly grew repetitive and predictable. Like whenever the author started trying to build up suspense because one of the good guys was going to try something important, I knew they’d fail, so the attempt at suspense came off as kinda sad.
There were several instances of sexual innuendo which I found creepy and inappropriate for a children’s book, most of all this one:
“Take the women, too,” said Stache, pointing to Mrs. Bumbrake. It was Stache’s policy always to take women, although this one was quite large. But a woman was a woman, the way Stache looked at it.
I know pirates kidnapped and raped women, but these are supposed to be Neverland pirates, not real pirates. If the pirates in Neverland were that much like real pirates, I think Wendy would have had a very different experience when she was captured by them in Peter Pan.
I don’t like Jim Dale’s narration style. I know he’s super popular and everyone loves him because he read the US edition of the Harry Potter books, but I’ve never liked his style. I actually tried listening to this book once before and gave up after a few minutes because I found the style so grating. His way of doing character voices makes me wince. So many of his voices, even ones for small boys, sound like he’s forcing them. He sounds like an old man who has to work really hard to speak. He sounds like someone just punched him in the gut and then made him read the line. I know these are intentional choices he’s making, but they really grate on me. There’s an appropriate time for that level of ‘straining to speak’ and that time is when a character is straining to speak, not all the time and for characters it’s completely inappropriate for.
This book was a big no for me. It’s not charming, funny, whimsical, or fun at all. It’s just boring and annoying and occasionally creepy.
This book is so boring. I was not expecting the entire first half to take place on ships out in the ocean, but it does, and it’s super boring. By the halfway mark, they’d finally washed up on an island, but by then I was sick of the book for other reasons.
I didn’t like any of the characters. I was least disinterested in Molly’s dad because he was competent and seemed like a decent person, but he apparently wasn’t much of an important character, as he only appeared in a couple scenes. I really didn’t like or care about any of the others at all. They were dull as bricks.
Watching Peter and Molly (and other good guys) constantly fail and be foiled was tiresome and quickly grew repetitive and predictable. Like whenever the author started trying to build up suspense because one of the good guys was going to try something important, I knew they’d fail, so the attempt at suspense came off as kinda sad.
There were several instances of sexual innuendo which I found creepy and inappropriate for a children’s book, most of all this one:
“Take the women, too,” said Stache, pointing to Mrs. Bumbrake. It was Stache’s policy always to take women, although this one was quite large. But a woman was a woman, the way Stache looked at it.
I know pirates kidnapped and raped women, but these are supposed to be Neverland pirates, not real pirates. If the pirates in Neverland were that much like real pirates, I think Wendy would have had a very different experience when she was captured by them in Peter Pan.
I don’t like Jim Dale’s narration style. I know he’s super popular and everyone loves him because he read the US edition of the Harry Potter books, but I’ve never liked his style. I actually tried listening to this book once before and gave up after a few minutes because I found the style so grating. His way of doing character voices makes me wince. So many of his voices, even ones for small boys, sound like he’s forcing them. He sounds like an old man who has to work really hard to speak. He sounds like someone just punched him in the gut and then made him read the line. I know these are intentional choices he’s making, but they really grate on me. There’s an appropriate time for that level of ‘straining to speak’ and that time is when a character is straining to speak, not all the time and for characters it’s completely inappropriate for.
This book was a big no for me. It’s not charming, funny, whimsical, or fun at all. It’s just boring and annoying and occasionally creepy.