Review: Cardboard characters
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 03 25, 2012
Ant and Cleo are well-developed, interesting characters. But most of the others, such as the Americans at the beginning of the book, are one-dimensional offensive stereotypes. It seems to cross the line between satire and outright hate of other countries, since as readers we're trained to read satire as a commentary on modern society, regardless of whether that was the author's intention. It would be as if all Germans were portrayed as Nazis. Even people who are not super-patriotic may find that troublesome. Perhaps it gets better as the book goes on, but I admittedly stopped reading early. I had mixed feelings because the author does have skill with words and parts of the book are truly funny. Two suggestions to the author, make us care about other characters than the central ones, and if the book is going to be sold on a global platform, think of ways to engage global customers rather than potentially turn them away.