Thursday, December 20, 2012

Immortal Lycanthropes by Hal Johnson –NOT RECOMMENDED


Johnson, Hal and Illustrated by White, Teagan Immortal Lycanthropes 304 pgs. Clarion Books, 2012. $11.55.  (Violence: PG13, Language: R Maybe 2 actual swear words but lots of R rated talk, Sexual: R)
Myron is a 13 year old boy who has some serious disfigurement from an accident he can’t even remember. In fact, he can’t remember any of his childhood, and was found injured. He was adopted by a nice family. School was pretty rough, and one bully in particular has it in for him. After a crazy fight between the two of them, some adults intervene and tell Myron that he is a were-animal. Many factions try to capture him and use him for various purposes on the their own agendas. Myron isn’t sure he is a were-animal, and survives these adventures as a human. He can of hopes he is special though.
The artwork featured in this book is awesome, I can’t wait to see more from this illustrator. But I flat out hated this story. It was philosophical, pretentious, and dare I even say, pseudointellectual. You may think it’s impossible to not endear oneself to the fate of a disfigured picked on sweet little boy, but I am here to say that it sure is possible in this story. I could have cared less what happened to the main character as he tries to solve the exceedingly long drawn out, and sort of boring mystery of his childhood and true nature. Any excited I had for this genre got lost in the maze of the writing trying too hard to be mysterious and the author trying to show off, really. I don’t think students, even those with tendencies towards claiming Indie, will stick with this one.
PUBLIC ONLY –NOT RECOMMENDED Reviewer: Stephanie Elementary Librarian &
Author.

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