Book Review: Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

I never thought I would fall in love with a criminal mastermind. Especially one who's only 12.

Artemis Fowl intrigued me from the first page. He speaks like an adult and takes fiendish delight in toying with anyone he doesn't consider his intellectual equal. He has no fear of brawn, either. But not because he's an imposing figure. He doesn't need to be. He has his heavily armed bodyguard, Butler, for that. Not that Butler needs weapons. He could kill a man a hundred different ways without using a weapon.

Do you see why boys like this book?

Artemis Fowl is full of gun fights, explosions, chases and double crosses. And did I mention the fairies? Yeah. But don't look for any sweet creatures with diaphanous wings. These elves, gnomes, trolls and fairies carry weapons. And they aren't afraid to use them.

The amazing underground worlds that Eoin Colfer has created with this series takes traditional lore and turns it on its ear. The best part, though, is the understated, smart a$$ character of Artemis. His ruthless words often contradict the thoughts running through his mind. Much as he wants to be seen as a tough guy, he has a soft spot for his mother. And though neither would admit it, he and Butler would be lost without each other.

The entire cast of characters make this book fun to read. There's Holly, the elf that Artemis goes up against. She's strong, she's a trained LEP Recon officer and she's got an attitude to match. Commander Root is the coolest, fungus cigar chomping fairy you'll ever come across. Foaly the centaur, a tech wizard, loves to match wits against Artemis, even while keeping the fairies shielded from humans and developing cool new gadgets. Mulch Diggums, the kleptomaniac dwarf with an explosive back side, can't seem to stay out jail. With more than one secret hidden in his beard, there's more to this dwarf than just his killer farts.

Put all of these characters together, add a stolen book of gnomish, a lot of gold, a missing father, a fairy-napping, cool futuristic gadgets, and lots of explosions, and you'll see why this has become a popular, long running series. I'm partial to the original covers, but my son thinks the new ones are even better. Whichever version you read, it's what's inside that will keep you turning the pages.

Looking for more Marvelous Middle Grade reviews? Check out these bloggers:
Shannon Whitney Messenger
Shannon O'Donnell
Joanne Fritz
Myrna Foster
Brooke Favero
Anita Laydon Miller
Deb Marshall
Barbara Watson
Michael Gilmartin

And I've got three winners for the ARCs from last week's post:

Congrats to Lenny, Brooke and Jackee!! Email me with your snail mail addresses and I'll get your books out to you!!

More Winners!

The winner of TELL ME A SECRET by Holly Cupala is:

The winner of CINDERS by Michelle Davidson Argyle is:

Congratulations everyone!! Email your snail mail address to solvangsherrie at gmail dot com and I will get your books out to you as soon as possible!

Happy Holidays! 

Jackpot!

The winner of NEED was Laura Pauling, but since she already downloaded the book on her Kindle, I redid this drawing and the new winner is:

The winner of MIRRORSCAPE is:

The winner of SUBJECT SEVEN is:

The winner of the Ellen Raskin compilation is:

The winner of AFTER THE WRECK is:

Congratulations everyone!! Email your snail mail address to solvangsherrie at gmail dot com and I will get your books out to you as soon as possible!

Happy Holidays!

And the Winners Are...

New words written: 1209
Total words written: 7231

So my word count for the first two days of NaNo is not very high, but I will say that I'm very happy with what I've written. Since I had a bit of a head start on this novel, I don't feel pressured to write junk just to build up my word count and that's a good thing.

Today when I was writing, I had a hard time visualizing the room where the scene took place. So I spent about an hour looking at pictures on the internet and then drawing the basic layout of my room. It might sound like a big waste of time, but it helped me tremendously to map it out like that, even though it did slow me down.

Obviously I will have to pick up the pace if I want to "win," but truth be told, that's not my goal. I've never won NaNo, but I do get a lot more written in November when I participate.

Now to the news you're really looking for -- who won the Something Old, Something New ARCs?

I used ClassTools.net because 1) it's free and 2) how cool is it to have the winning names show up on a slot machine? :-)


The winner of the Beautiful Creatures ARC is:

Congratulations, Riv! Drop me a note at solvangsherrie at gmail dot com to let me know your mailing address and I'll get the book out for you.

The winner of the Nightshade ARC is:

Congratulations, Krispy! Send your snail mail address to solvangsherrie at gmail dot com and I will send this out to you.

Midnight Madness

It's midnight and I'm still awake, rewriting the opening chapters of a book I thought was done. Now I see that I was wrong and I'm excited with where it's going.

I don't know why, but I seem to write better when everyone else is at home asleep. No distractions from email, the phone or hungry family members. I've had all day to mull over the possibilities. The words flow better for me at night. I'll might regret it tomorrow when I see the bags under my eyes and I can't keep up with the kids. But it's been a good writing night. When I finish this post, I think I'll write a little more.

As it happens, the cutoff for entering the drawing for a Barrie Summy book was at midnight so I went ahead and did the drawing, right on time. Each person was assigned a number and the generator at random.org chose two winners for me:

Lydia Kang won I So Don't Do Mysteries

and woo-hoo, my critique partner and good friend

Lori Walker won I So Don't Do Makeup.


Congratulations ladies! I'll get these books out to you both right away.