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A review by nikkibd4033
House of Robots: Robots Go Wild!: by James Patterson
2.0
I read this book out loud to my kids (ages 5&9). The only reason it's getting an extra star from me is because at least they liked it. Otherwise it would have gotten only one.
But for the adults, this book is really terrible. I'd recommend only getting it for your kids if they are going to read it independently.
The way the story was told had this weird fourth-wall thing going. And the narrator (Sammy, the protagonist) used the word Yep all the time, like what he was telling us was so unbelievable. Honestly, if I'd had this on Kindle, I would have done a search for the word 'Yep' to see how often it was used.
Also, there were a ton of sentence fragments used to make a point. To me, it's just a junk-filled space where my mom spends way too much time. Working. With the door locked. It's not that doing the sentence fragment thing is always wrong, it actually can be used to good effect. But in this book it was used WAY too often. Like, every single chapter often. (
And, after listening to I, Funny (and its sequel) on audiobook, and reading this, it's obvious that Patterson thinks that characters with disabilities have to be INSPIRATIONAL instead of allowing them to be fully fleshed-out characters with actual human personalities. Maddie had NO personality outside of "being strong despite a debilitating illness." Which is a pity, because there isn't enough disability representation in kids books (or any books, really) so I overlooked it a little bit with Jamie in I, Funny because it's awesome that there's a book with a wheelchair bound protagonist. And it's nice that there is a representation of a girl with a chronic debilitating illness in this book. But....all there is to her character is her illness, despite being the sister and very-best-friend of the first-person protagonist.
The dialog is cringe-worthy bad, which is only more noticeable when the book is being read out loud.
But like I said, my kids loved the book. Because it had robots and fart jokes in it.
But for the adults, this book is really terrible. I'd recommend only getting it for your kids if they are going to read it independently.
The way the story was told had this weird fourth-wall thing going. And the narrator (Sammy, the protagonist) used the word Yep all the time, like what he was telling us was so unbelievable. Honestly, if I'd had this on Kindle, I would have done a search for the word 'Yep' to see how often it was used.
Also, there were a ton of sentence fragments used to make a point. To me, it's just a junk-filled space where my mom spends way too much time. Working. With the door locked. It's not that doing the sentence fragment thing is always wrong, it actually can be used to good effect. But in this book it was used WAY too often. Like, every single chapter often. (
And, after listening to I, Funny (and its sequel) on audiobook, and reading this, it's obvious that Patterson thinks that characters with disabilities have to be INSPIRATIONAL instead of allowing them to be fully fleshed-out characters with actual human personalities. Maddie had NO personality outside of "being strong despite a debilitating illness." Which is a pity, because there isn't enough disability representation in kids books (or any books, really) so I overlooked it a little bit with Jamie in I, Funny because it's awesome that there's a book with a wheelchair bound protagonist. And it's nice that there is a representation of a girl with a chronic debilitating illness in this book. But....all there is to her character is her illness, despite being the sister and very-best-friend of the first-person protagonist.
The dialog is cringe-worthy bad, which is only more noticeable when the book is being read out loud.
But like I said, my kids loved the book. Because it had robots and fart jokes in it.