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thewallflower00 's review for:
The Wee Free Men
by Terry Pratchett
This book is too much fun. It's also the first real Terry Pratchett but I didn't need to know a thing about his previous books to read this. My favorite part is the setting -- a small town in... Scotland? Northern England? Made-upland? Not sure. But it's cool, because it's about a daughter and her relationship with her grandmother, the town "might-be-a-witch-not-sure-I'm-not-gonna-ask", one of the many shepherds. I love everything Pratchett says about shepherding, like burying one with a piece of wool to let God know that this was a shepherd and maybe didn't go to church every Sunday because when sheep give birth, you gotta be there for that.
And the funny thing is the titular "wee free men" are only in about half the book (but scattered throughout). And they're hilarious too. They speak in thick Scottish accents and love drinkin', fightin', and stealin'. And they swear fealty to a little girl who's a smart cookie due to trading vegetables for lessons at the local bazaar.
My only beef is the last part, where the final battle with Generic Queen Witch drags on for quite a few chapters. It bobbles back and forth between "is it a dream or isn't?" and repeats the same tension. Not to mention that the bad queen has no strong beef with the protagonist, so the dramatic conflict has nothing invested in it.
And the funny thing is the titular "wee free men" are only in about half the book (but scattered throughout). And they're hilarious too. They speak in thick Scottish accents and love drinkin', fightin', and stealin'. And they swear fealty to a little girl who's a smart cookie due to trading vegetables for lessons at the local bazaar.
My only beef is the last part, where the final battle with Generic Queen Witch drags on for quite a few chapters. It bobbles back and forth between "is it a dream or isn't?" and repeats the same tension. Not to mention that the bad queen has no strong beef with the protagonist, so the dramatic conflict has nothing invested in it.