Meat Loaf, not unlike a bat out of hell.
It’s Sunday, which means it’s time to recap some recent reviews for The Dead Kid Detective Agency! Luckily, this week, two-thirds of the reviewers liked what they read. And you know what Meat Loaf always says about that. (Fun fact: Meat Loaf appears in the glossary of the book.)
First, we have this nice write-up from the Winnipeg Free Press (October 15, 2011):
‘Entertaining dead characters add life to mystery … Munday has a quirky sense of humour, which sometimes delights but can also annoy. Possibly it is his background as a cartoonist that makes him intersperse the story with sometimes irrelevant observations … but the “dead kids” are well drawn and entertaining. Full marks for innovation.’
Not sure if cartoonists have a reputation for including irrelevant observations in their work, but I’m not going to argue that. The book also got a nice review from book and product review site, the Just Us Girls blog (October 16, 2011):
‘The Dead Kid Detective Agency … great book for young adults. I very much enjoyed this book. It reminded me of an up-to-date, more edgy Scooby Doo Mystery. The characters are well written, easy to visualize and memorable. There were some transitions from past to present that were a little on the confusing side but they did later tie very well into the plot, nonetheless, I will read the next installments as will my own 13-year-old daughter.’
And on the other end of things, a TAG (Teen Advisory Group) member of the Mississauga Public Library was not very fond of the book and had some choice words for October and her dead friends:
‘Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this novel to other people. I think it’s quite boring and pointless. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters or the events.’
Ouch. Well, you can’t win ‘em all. But click here to read the full review (in which the term ‘Zombie Tramper’ is coined.)
