Reviews

The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander

shelbyfayy's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

alexandrabree's review

3.0

Very lord of the rings

Plus I love the Disney films #1985

alyshadeshae's review

5.0

I'm pleased with Taran's progress as a boy growing into manhood and I quite like the obvious "growing" scenes where he actually talks through his thought process with his friends - specifically Eilonwy - instead of just changing into a better person. He talks himself through a couple of these "character growth spurts" in this book and, if I were still a child, I could well imagine that reading those specific passages would help me with my own real life personal growth. That being said, I always learned my lessons better from text than through screwing up with my own life, but I'm apparently an odd case. :-)

spinch4's review

5.0

Fun book!

cyanide_latte's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I'm so glad I've been giving this series a chance! The Disney film, much as I appreciate it for introducing me to the story years and years ago, doesn't do this justice. I really, really recommend everyone start reading The Chronicles of Prydain. This book was beautiful and you really need to give the entire series a read. It's so worth it, I don't care what your age is. This was fantastic.

rchluther's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

5.0

Dark, late elementary-age fantasy. We meet old friends in the second book and some interesting new ones. This may be my favorite of the series just for the Marshes of Morva. Always fun to revisit Prydain. (Note: Bears very little resemblance the the Disney movie of the same name. Disney took the first two books, crammed them together and took out a lot of interesting bits, and turned it into the first -- and only for a LONG time -- PG rated Disney cartoon. Watched it again recently and still pretty meh on it.)

Update in 2023: Love this book as much as ever! As I said above, the Marshes of Morva is one of the best sections of the whole series.

taliesinpendragon's review

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

apochemu's review

5.0

These books are so much better than the Narnia series. There, I said it. This book actually has adventure and not just allegory. Yet you still learn about honor and friendship and duty and consequences of all choices (good and bad) and sacrifice, just without getting knocked over the head with it. I still love Eilonwy the best.

ameserole's review

3.0

Okay, so I honestly didn't waste much time after finishing the first book because I dove into The Black Cauldron pretty quickly. That being said, I was actually pretty darn excited to dive into this book because I remembered watching the movie when I was little. Heck, I think it's on Disney + right now.

Another honest moment, it has been a very long time since I've seen the film. So at this point, I wasn't even trying to pretend that I remembered what happened in it. I think the girl was like saving herself at one point and the guy was like.. oh can I come? If that's completely wrong and I'm explaining a different movie.. then pretend you didn't see this review.

Now after diving in this one.. my view on Taran and Eilonwy has changed a bit. Not sure what exactly happened between the two books but they just got annoying. Like, I clearly remembered that they were kind of cute in the first book when they were together.. but something definitely changed in this one. I don't even think they were that annoying or frustrating to deal with in the movie?

Other than that, the adventure was a bit more exciting than the first one. Or at least I was a bit more invested this time around. Probably because this was turned into a movie.. and I have no shame about it at all.

In the end, I guess I'm intrigued enough to dive into the next book. I just have to find a version of it to read first.

lauriestein's review

3.0

I liked this quite a bit better than The Book of Three. In the second book of a series, a complete lack of backstory is less a of an issue than in the first. The plot/characters become somewhat more complex here, with some discernible growth.

Alexander writes with a peculiar tone that I can't describe any better than "tongue-in-cheek." It's not quite developed enough to be irony, but is more subtle than your basic wink at the reader.