I just finished reading the final installment in Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series and thought to myself, “Hey, why not add book reviews to my review site?” So here we are! These probably won’t be as frequent as my other reviews, but I’ll try not to let this section of the site stagnate too much.
I first started reading about the adventures of the teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl, his trusty bodyguard Domovoi Butler, and the spunky LEP Captain Holly Short back in 2004 or so. I first picked up The Eternity Code, the third book in the series, and was hooked from the start. I went back and read through the first two and became a loyal follower of the series over the years. The first three or four books were excellent, and the next few, while not as good, were still quite enjoyable. But The Last Guardian…wow.
Colfer’s writing is as top-notch as always; he never fails to make me laugh. His books always feel so smart, from the dialogue to the jokes made when the narrator is simply describing the situation. The pace is set in the first chapter and it doesn’t slow down until the very last chapter, when just about everything is resolved in the best ways possible. My only complaint is that it seemed that Colfer was explaining things a lot of the time, particularly in the first half, and a lot of it, such as an ancient game of the People that involved chewing on worms, simply didn’t need explaining. This complaint is small, though, because the rest of the book was everything I could have wished for.
I don’t want to spoil anything (a spoiler I am not!), but I’ll say this: we are given an excellent villain appropriate for the final book of the series, the characters that we all know and love all have their shining moments, and the plot is one of – if not the – best out of all eight books.
I wouldn’t hesitate to say that this is my favorite book of the series. If you’re a fan of Artemis Fowl, this book is a must-read! If you haven’t read any of the young Artemis Fowl’s adventures, you’re missing out! Start from the beginning and read on…you won’t regret it!
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
-Chad
P.S. – Goodbye, childhood.
Chad Likes Movies 
July 30th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
[…] complaint that I had voiced in my review of the final book in the series, The Last Guardian, was that Colfer tends to explain things that don’t need to be explained to someone who has […]