Book info

• Title Artemis Fowl
• Author Eoin Colfer
• Year 2001
• Genre Fantasy

AT JUST TWELVE YEARS OLD, ARTEMIS FOWL IS A CRIMINAL GENIUS. No scheme is too dastardly, no plot too devious. And he's just discovered that fairies are real. Poor fairies. But these are not the cuddly creatures of bedtime stories. They are armed. They are dangerous. And when Artemis captures Captain Holly Short for her fairy gold, he messes with the wrong elf. Holly isn't armed but she's incredibly dangerous, and pretty annoyed with all the kidnapping. Artemis Fowl is about to find out that fairies fight back... Let the misadventure begin.

Thoughts

Although I am developing a bit of a penchant for Young Adult book series’ like this, I don’t think I would have read it if it hadn’t been on the Big List. I heard an interview with the author a while ago and knew that it was about a boy that was generally to be considered bad, and also set in a world of fairies versus humans. That was all I knew, but it turns out, that’s all it is about too.

Artemis really is quite a bad kid, despite only being twelve years old. He has a small team of associates who help him plan and pull off a fairy kidnap. I was quite surprised that, despite being the title character, it didn’t feel as though we spent too much time with Artemis. We certainly didn’t get to know him very much at all, or the motivations for his continuing the family line of crime.

I enjoyed the story, there were some great creative moments like the real story behind leprechauns, and inventive characters like the tunnelling dwarf. Overall, it’s a great book and an enjoyable enough story, but not aimed at me and not really to my tastes. Glad I read it so I can see what all the fuss is about but I don’t think I’ll read any more.

Rating: 3 / 5