Title: Surprised
Product review: I picked up this book on a whim, without having read any of the previous books. It's a typical classic fantasy, with grandiose, stilted sentence structure, lots of thees and thous, and backwards-running sentences. Protagonist gets magical thingamabob and has to return it to its rightful place, joins up with stalwart traveling companions along the way, and so on.I was surprised, however, by how violent and gory this book really was. Definitely not for smaller kids. Characters go to their deaths screaming, characters get skinned, eaten, ripped apart, blood showers down, decapitated heads show up on more than one occasion. This is perhaps the most violent kid's book I've ever encountered, and I don't typically have a problem with violence. And after all of that, it ends tragically.The stilted language keeps you at a slight distance from the characters, so you don't really care that much about their fates. But still ... the book was dark, bloody, and ultimately pretty depressing.
Would you say this review depicts the product in a flattering or unflattering light?
