Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

My first post on this new blog. Sometime in 2013, I stopped listening to the radio on my commute to work. I started listening to audiobooks. I forgot how much I love to read, and how books can be so much better than TV and movies (but not always). Because of the length of my commute, I was really flying though books. At some point, I thought it would be nice to be able to look back and see what I had read, but I wasn't really do anything to keep track. Starting today, (and probably ending really soon, just like every other attempt at blogging/journal writing I have ever attempted) this is how I will track what I have read. Hopefully I can put down some thoughts regarding the book. For now, I am going to try to put down every book i read or listen to, therefore this blog will include the books I read to the girls at night, religious texts, and everything else. So, Artemis Fowl...

I finished this a couple of days ago. It took me a couple of days in the car. I was distracted at first as I was preparing to give a talk in church. It is sometimes hard to pay attention to an audio book even when there are very few distractions, but it is even harder when my mind is actively thinking about something else.

I gave the talk, and started to pay attention again to the book, and I enjoyed it. I picked up this book because my ten year old daughter is participating in Battle of the Books this year in school. I wanted to be supportive, and have been reading/listening to the books on her list. Artemis Fowl was one of those books.

The book is about a genius 12 year old who lives in a world infested with fairies. It is comparable to my ten-year-old's favorite series, Percy Jackson. I like these books better as it feels like the characters have more depth. Artemis Fowl, the main character, is the protagonist... but a bad guy, in a kid's book. It is an interesting mix. I felt like I wasn't sure if I should be rooting for him because he was doing the wrong thing, but because he was the first character we were introduced to, and sold as the protagonist, I was rooting for him most of the time.

I am interested for the ten year old to read it and see what she thinks. I suspect she will be thrown off by the white knight/black knight dilemma. I don't know if she has really encountered a character with any texture in any of the books she has read. She certainly didn't get that in the Percy Jackson series.

This book can purchased from Amazon here.