Posted on  20/08/2024 16:49:03

My rating: 2.5 stars of 5 stars

For a middle grade book, I found this way too dark!

This isn't a bad book! In fact, it does deal with a lot of important issues like bravery, leadership and societies ruled through fear. All good things for a middle grader to hear about and think upon.
But it is very gory and dark. And at times downright depressing!

I was expecting a thumping adventure with little children and adorable rats, but there's too much awfulness in there and too much darkness, for it to really reach the mark for me. I found it very difficult to get through it at times and wouldn't recommend it to my own middle grader either.

If you can bear a lot of animal cruelty, bad stuff happening all around and things always going from said bad to worse, you'll find this tale to be full of meaning and might want to give it a try. It does get happier in the end.

Unfortunately, this just didn't really work for me. :(

Check out this book and more of Terence Blacker on www.terenceblacker.com