Review: Another fun romp with Milrose and Arabella
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 17, 2011
This is the sequel to "Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help" and the two books should really be read in order since the "Den of Professional Help" provides a great deal of background to the "Toxic Fungus" story.  Most of that background is either taken for granted (not explained) or only briefly explained in "Toxic Fungus".  However, each book's actual storyline stands alone.  That said, I think I preferred "Toxic Fungus" as the story was a bit deeper and darker, and the characters were made to think about their lives and decisions more.  In other words, they were growing up a bit!  Mr. Cooper's style of writing is the same, and he has an incredible ability to 'turn a phrase'!  There were a few times while I was reading that I laughed out loud, but they were because of the mental image conjured by the words rather than an incident in the story itself.The story itself was geared to the YA age group, but could be enjoyed by adults as well.  As I said, it was a bit deeper, darker, and more thoughtful than the first book.  While this was by no means a serious book, it might be a good book for a parent to read with a YA and discuss afterwards some of the moral and ethical dilemmas that Milrose and his friends faced.  Definitely recommended for anyone, of any age, with a very quirky sense of humor!Note on Kindle formatting:  Very good, but not perfect.  Most of the book had several lines between paragraphs, most obviously during conversations.  That gave the feel that there were incredible pauses between responses.  There was one section where there were no spaces between paragraphs at all, and that didn't strike me as 'quite right' either.  Neither of those actually impacted reading, and if I remember correctly, the "Den of Professional Help" also had the multiple spaces between paragraphs, so that may be intentional.  Either way, it's non-standard but only takes a minute or two to get used to.