Book Review: Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfe

I listened to the audio production of Artemis Fowl written by Eoin Colfe. This book was published on April 13th, 2004 with a target audience of middle schoolers (age 12) and older.

This book was recommended to me by my local librarian.

Did I enjoy this story? Sure. Would I read the rest of the series? Probably not.

This is the tale of a 12-year-old kid genius who kidnaps a fairy then ransoms her for a ton of gold. While the story had an Ocean’s Eleven type of feel to it, I really didn’t care for the protagonist. I was hoping to see his character grow and develop as the story progressed, but he really doesn’t, nor does he seem to change. He’s an anti-hero. He’s an arrogant kid genius at the beginning of the story and he’s a richer kid genius at the end of this tale.

What made this story enjoyable were the other characters, NOT the protagonist. I liked Holly (the kidnapped fairy) and Butler (Artemis Fowl’s bodyguard). I also enjoyed the Fairy army: the LEPrecon Unit.

If you’re looking for an action-packed James Bond tale…with fairies. You may enjoy this book. There is some mild language used in this novel, but the author also used a LARGE vocabulary of words, something you don’t always see in books written for a teen audience. If you enjoy audiobooks, Nathaniel Parker did a superb job making the scenes come alive.

xo Juli