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A review by smusie
The Alchemyst by Michael Scott
2.0
This book is not by Paulo Coehlo!
My eight-year-old saw this book in the bookstore, and desperately wanted to read it. Since it was marked “Teens” I told him I wasn’t sure it would be appropriate for him. Then he wheedled, begged and pleaded until I said I would read it first to find out if it would be OK for him to read. What a sucker I am, I mean, what a good mother!
So I read it. It’s really not bad, but not the kind of book I would normally bother to read, at any age. For my kid, it might be too hard, but there’s nothing really inappropriate in there. It seemed very cinema-ready—the visual descriptions were vivid and intricately consistent. The story is also intricately planned out, but I was never drawn into the characters. But eight-year-old boys don’t really care that much about characters, do they?
It’s your basic good vs. evil story, with lots of magic, immortal good guys and bad guys, your race of Elders—pre-human beings with great powers, innocent teenage twins who have no idea they will soon hold the fate of the known world in their hands, that kind of thing. It’s also based on some real-life characters, namely John Dee, and Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel; the author has clearly done a lot of research to get the historical details right. None of that makes it a book I would ever read of my own accord—but I’m a grown-up. If my kid wants to read it (and can follow the narrative jumps), it’s fine with me.
My eight-year-old saw this book in the bookstore, and desperately wanted to read it. Since it was marked “Teens” I told him I wasn’t sure it would be appropriate for him. Then he wheedled, begged and pleaded until I said I would read it first to find out if it would be OK for him to read. What a sucker I am, I mean, what a good mother!
So I read it. It’s really not bad, but not the kind of book I would normally bother to read, at any age. For my kid, it might be too hard, but there’s nothing really inappropriate in there. It seemed very cinema-ready—the visual descriptions were vivid and intricately consistent. The story is also intricately planned out, but I was never drawn into the characters. But eight-year-old boys don’t really care that much about characters, do they?
It’s your basic good vs. evil story, with lots of magic, immortal good guys and bad guys, your race of Elders—pre-human beings with great powers, innocent teenage twins who have no idea they will soon hold the fate of the known world in their hands, that kind of thing. It’s also based on some real-life characters, namely John Dee, and Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel; the author has clearly done a lot of research to get the historical details right. None of that makes it a book I would ever read of my own accord—but I’m a grown-up. If my kid wants to read it (and can follow the narrative jumps), it’s fine with me.