Un Lun Dun

What a difficult book to review! China Mieville is undisputed in my mind when it comes to weird fiction, and works such as "Perdido Street Station" and "The Scar" are sheer brilliance set like concrete in my imagination. The difficulty with reviewing "Un Lun Dun" is that it is not, strictly speaking, an adult book. Mieville contradicts himself by writing another tome of a novel but intending it to be for younger adults; the protagonist is a young girl undergoing the familiar transition between our world and a mysterious other realm, one that is common in young fiction. It would seem straightforward to judge the novel as one written for a young adult, but it really seems like Mieville is deluding himself here. I would imagine that most fans would have preferred an adult story in the guise of youth fiction, as a form of pastiche perhaps, rather than an unusual attempt at reaching towards a new market.

Still, it is not a bad novel. It ripples with imagination and there are twists of the genre at every turn - the venture into a new world is no longer a trip down a rabbit hole, and the "Chosen One" choses to stay home so the city of Un Lun Dun may just have to settle for Second Best - and the mysterious creatures, the unusual characters and the malformed locations are all interesting and can withstand scrutiny. Anybody who has seen Neil Gaiman's "Mirror-Mask" will have a sense of the kind of distorted reflection of a familiar world.

"Perdido Street Station" it is not, but nor is it a throwaway piece of cheap fiction. There is merit here and Mieville retains a style, although less indomitability, that he has been constructing since "King Rat". It may be a bit of an author's experiment, but it's a great read by a great author. Sadly standing out from the darker and more adult novels by Mieville, I would still heartily recommend it to adults and younger readers alike.

China Mieville has a reputation for taking the real world and turning it on its head in his novels. With his first foray into the juvenile fiction arena, the author doesn't pull any punches. Young readers who are imaginative and creative will enjoy this sideways trip through a London that never existed.

The author has the uncanny ability to sort out the strange and wicked of everyday things and present them in a light that will guarantee that readers will never look at those things the same way again. Parents may not get it, but I'm betting most kids do. This is one of those books that will transport young readers away from the everyday world into something new and fantastic.

I had a blast reading all the descriptions of this "other" London and of all the things that lived there. I haven't tried any of the author's adult fantasies but I'm going to amend that now.

Since this is Mieville's first book for young adult readers, I grabbed it eagerly. If you're familiar with his other books, you'll understand why. I was hoping to find another book to share with kids in my classroom and when I saw this one in the bookstore, it caught my eye. It wasn't just the bright book cover and title, but also the huge display, saying that it was recommended for Harry Potter fans, as they await the release of book #7.

In "Un Lun Dun," we meet two best friends from London, Zanna and Deeba. Strange things start happening when they're out and strange people keep mentioning the word "Schwazzy!" to Zanna. You find out later that "Schwazzy" means "chosen one". Zanna is the chosen one, according to "the book" and propheseers in Un Lun Dun, who is supposed to save the city and the lives of everyone in Un Lun Dun.

Un Lun Dun itself is very much like (and unlike) London. Houses are made of anything that can be put together (mostly junk that has come through to this abcity from London, like old tv sets and broken washing machines).

While this is not a book for everyone (especially those who don't like fantasy) it is a fun, quick read for those who can put reality aside and fall in love with a sometimes darker version of home. I loved it and several of my students have loved this one as well.

In "Un Lun Dun," Miéville very successfully creates a distinctive fantasy world which holds a funhouse mirror to our own world. In terms of creativity and imaginative language, it's quite an accomplishment.

That being said, the book is not going to be for everyone. Although listed as "Young Adult," some of the subject material (and how it is treated) seems targeted to younger readers...while at the same time, some content may be too intense for that younger group. But as the saying goes, "Readers who like this kind of stuff will like this." That's not really meant as a joke, but rather to say that there are certain readers who will find Miéville's work just to their taste, and will find Un Lun Dun to be a rewarding treat. Like Neal Gaimann? Consider giving Miéville a try!

When I finished this novel, I immediately handed it to my 12 year old daughter. While I enjoyed Un Lun Dun, I know that she will find much more reason to delight in it. Alas, the perils of age. Un Lun Dun is certainly a fun and entertaining novel. The cover references a review that compares it to The Wizard of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth and Alice in Wonderland. To that list I would add Greek mythology and the Harry Potter series. Un Lun Dun is the story of a 12 year old London girl who, with a friend, discovers an alternative, parallel London, unLondon, if you will. There she faces perils, trials and tribulations with grit and determination. Mieville has so much fun with language here, so much fun riffing on reality that the reader cannot help but enjoy the ride. Un Lun Dun is a nice juicy novel, one to be enjoyed by adults and children alike. Enjoy!

A great many YA novels attempt a modicum of maturity but fall far short and end up being what would appropriately be termed children's literature. The level of condescension present in many of them is almost offensive, suggesting that young adults cannot be subtle nor intuitive readers. Mieville takes a remarkable stand against this trend and delivers a novel that is enchanting and challenging to multiple levels of readers. His language is beautiful, challenging, and most importantly playful.

As with most of his novels, the setting of ULD is as much a character as is Deeba or any of her party. The inhabitants of the abcity Unlundun are rich in character and are conjured from the simplest of ideas into unforgettable characters--a conscious milk carton most of all. Mieville paints a city whose denizens force the readers to reconsider our lives: fated observer or willful participant? This is not a comfortable book to read, and readers will find themselves pausing frequently to compare their own cities with Mieville's abcities.

The social and political commentary is subtle yet insistent. Young readers with a growing awareness of social and political ideologies would benefit from reading this novel with careful consideration of the historical context. Mieville's own leftist political ideologies are not overt, but they do beg themselves to be considered in light of the turmoil in Unlundun, a turmoil not unlike what is developing (or is peaking) in our own world.

Subversion is a central theme, and Mieville does a masterful job of not only refusing to bow to the templates of the genre but of creating an entirely new one: heroes aren't heroic; prophecies aren't prophetic; and words aren't our own.

China Mieville is a great author--for adults. I was not sure upon getting his first foray into the world of young adult books how well his dense, lush word choice and love of the bizarre would translate for a younger audience. The result is an across the board success.

Deeba and Zanna, the young female protagonists, are transported to a skewed reflection of London where dustbins are ninjas and it is not uncommon for metro buses to fly, or hop. Here they encounter a group of quirky locals who quickly recognize Zanna as the key to an ancient prophesy--only she can defeat the Smog.

There are a lot of influences at play here--Mieville credits Alice, The Phantom Tollbooth, and The Borribles among others. Much like the Phantom Tollbooth, a delightful sense of humor keeps this book moving at a rapid clip. Wordplay is key to the enjoyment here. A love of puns is almost required.

Adding to the charm are a series of black and white pen sketches by the author. These simple, small sketches really increased my enjoyment of the book. An evil, slavering giraffe is a sight to behold. What a monster! I hope that publishers will use Mieville's sketches in his future books for both young and older audiences.

I also enjoyed the approach used here. This is a book aimed at younger audiences, but it doesn't fall victim to hackneyed convention. The prophecy that one might conclude to be the heart of the story from reading the book's jacket is in fact no more than a not so thinly veiled swipe at the idea that destiny, not self determination, sets us on our paths. Mieville writes for a younger crowd here, but his book is far from conventional and not afraid to be thought provoking.

This is a highly recommended title. Anyone who enjoys fantasy, the works of China Mieville, or well written books that aim for a youthful audience without condescension is likely to get a kick out of this book.

Un Lun Dun is a wonderful book by China Mieville. It is about a young girl named Zanna and her best friend, Deeba. They live in London, but strange things keep occurring. The way animals stare at Zanna makes Deeba uneasy, and the girls are scared of the unknown fog that has settled over the city. The girls decide to have a sleepover to discuss the strange happenings, but when Zanna sees a moving, broken umbrella by the window pane, she goes after it, against Deeba's desperate pleads to go back to the house. Deeba watches unwillingly as something comes over her friend and Zanna tracks the umbrella's oily "tracks" that Deeba can barely see. Finally, the girls end up in a warehouse, and Zanna goes immediately to a strange door and begins to turn a wheel upon it. Slowly, London's many lights begin to simply shut off. Deeba cowers and repeatedly asks her friend to stop, but it is as if Zanna can no longer hear her. When Zanna finally does stop, she and Deeba walk out into another world, called Un Lun Dun, where there are man-eating giraffes, transparent ghosts and flying buses. The girls find out that Zanna is "The Shwazzy", or Chosen One, and must defeat the evil Smog, who is made of pollution and poisonous gas fumes, that London's factories have been feeding unconsciously before Un Lun Dun and London are destroyed by it.
This book is a beautiful masterpiece made up of bravery, friendship, jealousy, and fear. If you enjoy adventure and excitement then you will love this book. It is also a very suspenseful and surprising piece of literature. It is excellent all around!
I think that young girls from around 10-13 years old would enjoy this novel. Boys that are around that age may like this book, but I don't really think it is their thing. I suppose it depends on personality. Younger children could read this book, but may be frightened by it or not understand its themes, so I don't suggest it.
I read this book to my 11 year old daughter, Claudia. She has never really been into reading, but this book sure did change that! Every night, she begged me to read it to her and confessed that she sometimes read ahead to find out what happened. Sometimes I would find her curled up in bed, under her covers with a flashlight, her eyes darting across each page, as fast as lightning.
I strongly suggest reading this book. Even I, as a 42-year-old woman, was enchanted by the beauty and craft in Mieville's writing. If you read Un Lun Dun, trust me, you will not regret it!

I adored this book. At first I was hesitant- there was a bit of jumping around from current events to recent events that had me slightly confused and bothered at the beginning, but soon after the girls entered UnLondon for the first time, I was hooked. I agree with a number of other reviewers that the characters were often weakly fleshed-out, but that didn't really stop me from liking them anyways, nor from desperately wanting to see where the story would go next. It didn't take me long to finish this book because I had a hard time putting it down to do other, more important things, and when it was over I was left wanting more.
I am the kind of person who appreciates a weird/imaginative sort of setting, and Un Lun Dun delivers spectacularly on that one. The quirkiness of the creatures, characters and settings alone held my interest because a new marvel would be presented just as soon as the book moved on from the last one. It's the sort of place I would love to go and see for myself- it has the same sort of appeal as a curiosity shop. Besides that, more than once it made me laugh.
This is most definitely a book for children, not so much for teenagers. But as we all know, children's books done right can be just as enthralling to adults. This is one of those books.

I remember reading the Phantom Tollbooth as a youth and the delight at the whimsy (although, I did not think in terms of that particular word at the time); Mieville's Un Lun Dun strikes a similar chord in what amounts to a decidedly off kilter version of the classical quest yarn. I cannot stop there, though, because this is not just an updated PTB, the author has woven a number of strong messages into the story - ecological accountability, social responsibility and loyalty - to name a few.

The story's protagonist starts off as a 'sidekick,' but quickly takes over the story, and with the help of a growing collection of odd friends works her way through a number of imaginative complications and tasks to reach the culminating climax. The author has paced the story and content at just about the right level for the target age group (10-14 or so in my opinion).

My bottom line is that this is an excellent book for a young adult reader, although I think the 450+ pages may scare off some pre-teens (in which case, they would benefit from having an adult read it to/with them). My sole complaint is the continual use of the double negative in the hero's dialog - do youth in England really talk that way? Anyway, I still give it 5 stars for the overall effect.

I agree with the reviewer who said they wish this was around when they were a kid. Yeah, to an adult it's no Perdido Street Station, but I don't know of any other book in PSS's league anyway.

My favorite moment in the book is when they are trying to name their boat, and they blurt out three names - I immediately caught one of the references, but stumbled over the others. Well, when I investigated them, I discovered another interesting (sadly, out of print) book to explore. I love the richly nuanced, referential nature of Mieville's worlds and writing. I would read anything he wrote - and anything he whispers that I ought to be reading in between the lines of his amazing prose!

I pretty much agree with most of the other people who enjoyed this book. However, I do have one objection that I don't see has been raised by many other people. Deeba's grammar is terrible! Sure, I believe she's meant to be the 'common' youngster so that readers can relate to her. However, is it really necessary for her to speak that way? YA readers may see this prose and think it's okay to speak like that. It's not - I find it mildly offensive. It might be anal of me to hold on to a more proper form of the English language, but I really wish Deeba had better dialogue written for her. She came off sounding like uneducated trash at times. There are other ways to make a young character relate to young readers.

China Mieville's Un Lun Dun came highly recommended by a friend who felt that she hadn't enjoyed a SciFi-Fantasy read so much in a long time. So although I had heard mixed reports I was keen to read it for myself.

The story follows the fundamental Fantasy plot--there is a world in mortal danger from the villainous Smog and a quest to save it, involving a diverse party of "heroes", some likely and some unlikely in terms of their characters. The world in question is Un-London, an 'alternate London' that overlaps and to an extent reflects the city in our world but is still a separate 'verse. The feel of the story and the world is probably as much Oz/Yellow Brick Road as it is Alice Through the Looking-Glass--there is the Looking Glass sense of oddity and distorted reality, but Deeba, Un Lun Dun's heroine, also bears a considerable resemblance to Dorothy. Like Dorothy, Deeba wants to get home to her family, she acquires a small, "dog like" companion (Curdle) and others that bear some resemblance to the scarecrow (Obaday Fing, the paper man with needles and pins hair), the Tin Man (Conductor Jones) and the Lion (Skool). Admittedly I am may be stretching this resemblance a little, but even Mortar, the head "Propheseer" did rather remind me of the Wizard in Oz.

Throughout the book, Mieville's story operates at two levels: there is the traditional quest--and there is the deliberate turning upside down of the more familiar elements of that tradition. To say too much here would be a "spoiler" but suffice it to say that the prophecies of a chosen hero are quickly debunked as are some of the more traditional stereotypes of fantasy fiction, such as the wise guide and the valiant Robin Hood type anti-hero.

This could have been refreshing and I think that if Mieville had pulled it off it would have been--but he doesn't quite manage it. It may be that humor, Terry Pratchett style, would have been a better vehicle for this sort of endeavor: it may simply be that trying to subvert the quest paradigm and carry it to a successful conclusion was just too difficult for anyone to pull off. But whatever the reason, Un Lun Dun did not quite work for me--despite my friend's glowing recommendation.

The reason I say "not quite" is that Un Lun Dun still held positives for me. I did not find it a thrilling read but there were no obvious continuity errors and Mieville's prose is vigorous and he kept the story moving along (a little too much imo, but more on that below). I also think that it would be hard to match this book for sheer inventiveness. The whole of Un-London reflects inventive imagination on the grand scale and the world and its inhabitants are vividly imagined and described, but ...

But ...

The reason Un Lun Dun did not work for me is that although the story was fast paced and inventive, I was left feeling that less could have been more in both these areas. As a reader, I felt that I was being rushed from one vivid and inventive and 'wow-that's-amazing-but I-can't-quite-take-it-in-moment-because the next-is-already-coming-up-and-omg-it's-here" to the next. And wait--there's more again! So much so that I never got fully drawn into the story, part of me was always left on the outside looking in.

And there were so many characters--many of whom simply flashed by and were never revisited--and even with Deeba, the main character, I never really walked in her shoes. There was always this sense of being "told" what Deeba felt, rather than feeling it with her, and most of the other "major" characters were never really fleshed out. And to be a great read, a book's just got to have characters that engage me--even if it is only to thoroughly dislike them. But in this case I just couldn't care enough to dislike anyone, or particularly like them either. Mieville's characters didn't "live", and for me that was the book's fatal flaw.

I absolutely loved this book. What a pleasure. I never would have known of it had it not been featured on the front table at my local book store. I was intrigued by the title so I picked it up and read the first couple of pages and I was immediately hooked. I just finished it and feel so lucky to have taken the journey to "Un Lun Dun"...It is one that I would highly recommend to others. I don't normally read this genre so I can't actually compare it to any other books, but if you have ever seen and enjoyed the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki (e.g., Spirited Away,Howl's Moving Castle, etc.) then you should enjoy this book; it is like reading one of the best of them. (In case you haven't seen any of his films I should clarify that I am in no way comparing this book to a 'cartoon'. Rather I am comparing it to an animated film with wonderfully imaginative characters full of heart and soul, a fantastic, beautifully drawn and fully realized world all its own, and a delightful story that ties it all together and keeps you hooked till the very last frame....or in this case, the very last page.) I'm usually wary of jacket-cover reviews written by fellow authors, but I have to agree with Holly Black when she says that this book "feels instantly like a classic and yet is thoroughly modern." I wish I had half the imagination of Mr. Mieville, or at least half his skill at organizing his imagination on the printed page.

This novel is very well written by Miéville. This fantasy has suspense and at the same time, humor. Unexpected things happen, and before you know it, Deeba must find a new way to try to annihilate the Smog. For example, when Deeba finally obtained the UnGun, which is the only weapon that is able to defeat the "Smog", one of her allies stole it and gave it to the Smog's allies. This created many problems for Deeba and her wide range of friends, which included a milk carton, a half-ghost, a bird, some "words", a rebrella (a fixed "unbrella" (broken umbrella)). The 425-page-book is divided into 99 "chapters" so it's easy to read and stop. It never gets dull and is packed with action. This is truly a must-read book that young readers will be able to enjoy.

when Zanna and Deeba accidentally stumble into another secret world under london - Un Lun Dun - they find that the bizzarre is the normal and the normal doesn't exist. animated umbrellas, pincushion headed tailors, crazy man-eating giraffes, talking chess pieces and evil smog (trying to take over the world of course!) bring together elements of Alice in Wonderland and Fern Gully and create a truly wonderful new book. Deeba shines as a level headed and strong heroine. recommend this to all of your fantasy loving teens!

I tried several times to get started on this book, but it didn't really grab me (I did finally read it). I enjoyed it enough to recommend it for young readers who like fantasy, but not as much as I expected to enjoy it (I generally love urban fantasy). The pet milk carton was cute. The storyline (girl finds out she's important in an alternate universe) just seemed like it had been done before (Clive Barker's "Abarat" series comes to mind). I think I would have loved this book when I was 12.

This is China Mieville's first book for younger readers yet it captures a wonderful landscape peopled with characters and imagery that will appeal to all ages. Those who have read Mieville's earlier books such as 'Perdito Street Station' and 'The Scar' will see similarities in the breadth and depth of the characterisation yet Unlundun captures a landscape less violent but no less phantasmagorical. The story line weaves a picaresque journey through an alternative London where the familiar landscape is distorted into something we know but do not know. There are shades of Alice's Looking Glass with a sort of Dali-esque distortion that leaves even adult readers in admiration of Mieveille's use of language and imagination. For all that it appeals exactly to the generation to which it is directed. The story twists and turns, each episode described with the vividenss and delicate penstroke of a master with our young heroines adapting pragmatically to each new and more amazing character. There is just enough tension to satisfy, just enough delicious scariness to curl the toes but overall not enough to need the light on when the book is closed. As my grand-daughter remarked after finishing her last Harry Potter novel "Unlundun is my favourite book now .. and I've already read it three times!" No finer praise. Harry Potter watch out - you have a serious rival in Mieville's fertile imagination.

Such books -- with such conceits about a young character with powers and abilities (at first unknown to herself) that can save some alternate world -- well, they can be predictable a bit by now, right? Un Lun Dun isn't totally ground breaking, either, but it manages to make such a familiar trope feel almost as fresh and light as you could hope.

I'm an adult reader who enjoys raiding my kid's bookshelf from time to time, and this is one stands out as definitely above average.

In modern London strange things start happening in young Zanna's and her schoolfriend Deeba's whereabouts. Animals stop and stare, strange messages appear on the walls and improbable visitors watch over her in the dark. As they follow the trails of one such unexpected apparition, they find themselves in the middle of a distorted image of the city named UnLondon, which finds itself in war. There seem to be a number of profecies about the outcome of the war and everybody welcomes Zanna as the expected Chosen one, come to lead to the final resolution of the situation and things should take their way as expected in the way of the most typical of fantasy works...
But what if the Chosen one isn't the one expected, and what if a local hero comes forth to lead a Resistance against the most feared enemy UnLondon has ever been called to face?
And what if even then things are not as they actually seem?
China Mieville has put together an amazing book with deep ecological messages, both educational and fun, where you can lose yourself in a fast paced read and on each turning page enter a new facet of this caleidoscope of unleashed, wild imagination.

Un Lun Dun is presented as a story for YA that is certain to thrill readers of all ages still young at heart.
I am certain that very soon it will find it's place on a self between Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz.
I loved it.

I think Mieville is the most talented young writer in speculative fiction today, hands down. That's saying a lot, considering the impressive work out there. I have read all the fiction he has put out and have been consistently floored by it as I have by no other writer. Un Lun Dun is just the latest masterpiece from him, as impressive for adults as any of his adult work and a book I look forward to handing my 4-year-old in about 6 or 7 years.

I am quite choosy (hee hee) about children's fiction, and I liked this very much. I hope Miyazaki does a film, I am sure he would do it perfectly.
It reminded me a bit of Haroun and the Sea of Stories, one of my all-time favorites, with the wordplay and the alternate-universe quest and bizarre creatures.
I was also happy to see a desi heroine, it's rare!

Un Lun Dun is imaginative and written well but it's aimed at middle school kids. I loved The City and The City and I wanted more of the same, but this isn't it. Still, the author is one I will continue to read, no doubt about that.

A fine move by Mieville into somewhat new territory. This is, in my opinion, his tightest novel yet, more reminiscant of King Rat than the the Bas-Lag titles. Compared to his other work, 'Un Lun Dun' is obviously geared to young adults (a tough market), but is extremely enjoyable for anyone who likes a well-written, imaginitive and a truly weird yarn. While Mievilles earlier books have a very open-ended feel, 'Un Lun Dun' wraps itself up nicely and really puts a fine twist on the typical 'chosen-one fullfills her destiny' cliche'. As usual, you can't go wrong with this fellas fine and bizarre writing.

Un Lun Dun is probably a very interesting read for the tween crowd but I found it not of the same caliber as Harry Potter and Phantom Tollboth. It is about a fantasy city under London and two friends discovering the city and all of the many strange characters that live there. If you love fantasy I say "give it a try" you might love it.

Fans of the darker aspects of Alice in Wonderland will enjoy this sometimes overly descriptive novel about the Un-London - a world where the scraps and trash from our city find there way to new lives. A young girl and her friend find themselves thrust into this looking glass version of their home and are desperate to find a way back.

As with all of the other books by China Mieville, I found this one to be enormously entertaining, with an excellent taste of the surreal and fantastic. However, I have to question whether it really belongs in the 'juvenile literature' section, as I think that it would make hard going indeed for any but the most precocious of younger children, and prove challenging even for somewhat older readers.

I spent approximately 5 years adjuncting (in art) at a small university in Southern Ohio, and have also been working on a second degree (in the natural sciences). From everything that I have seen of our students, this book would far over the heads of the majority of them. Granted, we are an open admissions university, and thus do not tend to attract the 'cream of the crop' in terms of our student body, but most of our students are around average for university expectations.

Again, I would stress that this is a truly excellent read, and like Mieville's other works, it is right out there on the cutting edge of fantasy. I'm just not sure how many young readers would be able to relate to this book, and many, if not most of them, may find it to be frustrating and difficult.

London is connected to the dimension of Un Lun Dun through a variety of ways including climbing up the shelves of a library to turning on a tap. Deeba and Zanna know nothing about this other realm until they accidentally reach it. When she arrives there, Zanna is welcomed as the Chosen One who will defeat the very sentient and evil smog. Unfortunately, she is knocked unconscious when she inhales it. To the rescue comes Brokenbroll, Un Lun Dun's greatest defender with special umbrellas that blow away the smog. His friend Instable is working on a method of getting rid of the sentient smug paranormally.

Zanna recovers and she and Deena are sent back to their world. Zanna has no memory of all the wonders and trials and tribulations she experienced. Deeba remembers and returns to Un Lun Dun to find out if the Smog os gone. The smog is spreading and growing more powerful and it is now up to Deeba to find a way to stop it. A sentient book says the only thing the fog is afraid of is the UnGun so she and her allies go to Webminster Abbey where they fight horrible monsters guarding the weapon. If she doesn't find it then Un Lun Dun will be a city of slaves to the Smog.

Cross Alice Threw The Looking Glass with the Xanth series and reader will have some idea of what Un Lun Dun is all about. Written for a young adult audience, it will be enjoyed by adults who find the Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter charming reading experiences. The heroine is a very special young lady with the heart of a warrior and the dedication of Mother Teresa. The characters are very special and unusual including sentient umbrellas and words made incarnate and pet milk cartons that are alive.

Harriet Klausner

This book is well written and exiting and features a strong female hero. My 5th-grader really enjoyed it. I read it as well, but it lost my interest after a while. It's set in one of those worlds with little internal logic, so that nearly anything can happen next, and it often does. I prefer stories where I can logically predict at least some of the plot twists.

I love young adult fantasy, I always have, even pre-Harry Potter. This book is not perfect, but it is infectious and you will read to the end. If you have ever read the Phantom Toll Booth you will be reminded of it here

I enjoyed this book thoroughly! It is rare that I find a book that has fantastic wordplay and a great story. From the first page I was drawn into an imaginary world full of unusual creatures and characters.

You've got a strange world made of trash, Ghosts, a prophecy book that constantly complains that it is entirely false. Ok. Obviously this author is super creative. I'm ready for one weird and powerful villian. After all there is a prophecy written about him, albeit a wrong one. I bet he'll be awesome!. What do we get? A SENTIENT CLOUD OF DIRTY AIR!!!!! LITERALLY!!!. You can give me a world that makes Alice and wonderland seem as ordinary as Wal-mart but you can't come up with anything even remotely decent for a villan!!!!???. This whole thing is about pollution anyhow. I get that. Good but even Fern Gully did a better job of making pollution both sentient and extremely evil. He couldn't have been composed of mustard gas at least????. Honestly I see why the so-called book of prophecy must've been wrong. Whoever wrote it probably didn't want the supposed hero to have to waste her time fighting something so pathetic and utterly ridiculous so he probably decided that the task should go to some apathetic and naive person who had all the time in the world to waste. Now what will the hero who was not prophesied to beat "the SMOG" (Ain't that an original name?) use to vanquish him? The Un-Gun aka A VACUUM CLEANER PISTOL!!!!. REALLY????!!! It apparently has a limited mumber of "shots" (Must've been a "Shark" brand). This was not a willing read. I had to read it in a Children's Literature class I was taking. We had a test on it which I failed and didn't even remotely regret doing so because it was so boring and cheesy I couldn't remember half of what happened (That was a first for me. I can't stand failing tests. ) It's just sad. If I wanted to be bombarded with preachy tree-hugging messages, flat Characters that try to be diverse through glaring differences and pathetic pollution based villans I could've watched captain planet. At least IT had a catchy theme song and a hero summoned via some awesome looking rings. I mean, if all it took was a fancy looking vacuum to kill the bad dirty air it makes it seem as though a set of sentient tools could've found a sentient, bagless, vacuum cleaner with a hose, fixed it for one last go and sucked the stupid thing up themselves. We went through all this fuss just to beat a meany dirt cloud? forget this. just watch Captain planet.