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Paul's Reviews > The BFG
The BFG
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So many people love this book, and all I can muster for it is ... meh.
This book is so meh, I fell asleep while we were listening to it in the car � twice!
This book is so meh, I promptly forgot we had finished it, and I'm only now reviewing it more than two weeks after we got home from vacation.
Why is it meh? Well, first, the BFG's mangling of English is amusing at first, but it quickly zooms past tiresome and right into actively annoying. Second, I've never had much patience for pervasive potty humor. And third, the tedious Q&A exposition of Giant Country is about as dull as possible. Throw in a few borderline-inappropriate references to various countries and ethnic groups, and you get what, in my opinion, is a worst-of collection of all of the traits that only make mercifully brief appearances in other Roald Dahl novels (I'm thinking especially of the Charlie books, especially Great Glass Elevator).
I'll say this: Perhaps if I had read The BFG instead of listening to it, I wouldn't have found it so annoying, and I could have skimmed past some of the tedious exposition. Also, I didn't click with the actor reading this book; we were constantly adjusting the volume because he was so committed to whispering the quiet parts and screaming the loud parts (slightly exaggerating), and let's face it, everyone pales when compared with Mark Rylance. So I'm giving it two stars instead of one because there were glimpses of a genuinely good, funny story in there (which are brought out much better in the far more enjoyable movie). And my kids liked it, even if I didn't.
This book is so meh, I fell asleep while we were listening to it in the car � twice!
This book is so meh, I promptly forgot we had finished it, and I'm only now reviewing it more than two weeks after we got home from vacation.
Why is it meh? Well, first, the BFG's mangling of English is amusing at first, but it quickly zooms past tiresome and right into actively annoying. Second, I've never had much patience for pervasive potty humor. And third, the tedious Q&A exposition of Giant Country is about as dull as possible. Throw in a few borderline-inappropriate references to various countries and ethnic groups, and you get what, in my opinion, is a worst-of collection of all of the traits that only make mercifully brief appearances in other Roald Dahl novels (I'm thinking especially of the Charlie books, especially Great Glass Elevator).
I'll say this: Perhaps if I had read The BFG instead of listening to it, I wouldn't have found it so annoying, and I could have skimmed past some of the tedious exposition. Also, I didn't click with the actor reading this book; we were constantly adjusting the volume because he was so committed to whispering the quiet parts and screaming the loud parts (slightly exaggerating), and let's face it, everyone pales when compared with Mark Rylance. So I'm giving it two stars instead of one because there were glimpses of a genuinely good, funny story in there (which are brought out much better in the far more enjoyable movie). And my kids liked it, even if I didn't.
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