Kill The Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne

*Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, a hero, the Chosen One, was born . . . and so begins every fairy tale ever told. This is not that fairy tale.

There is a Chosen One, but he is unlike any One who has ever been Chosened. And there is a faraway kingdom, but you have never been to a magical world quite like the land of Pell.

“The hooktounges speared through the dough and retracted, giving the creatures an unexpected carb load instead of a bloody protein snack and completely destroying any ongoing ketogenesis.”

There, a plucky farm boy will find more than he’s bargained for on his quest to awaken the sleeping princess in her cursed tower. First, there’s the Dark Lord who wishes for the boy’s untimely death . . . and also very fine cheese. Then there’s a bard without a song in her heart but with a very adorable and fuzzy tail, an assassin who fears not the night but is terrified of chickens, and a mighty fighter more frightened of her sword than of her chain-mail bikini. This journey will lead to sinister umlauts, a trash-talking goat, the Dread Necromancer Steve, and a strange and wondrous journey to the most peculiar “happily ever after” that ever once-upon-a-timed.

My Thoughts

As I decided how I could justify my rating, I went through the Goodreads reviews. What I found was what I expected. This was a book where you either loved it or hate it.

Me? I hated it. I had such high hopes for this book. The first few pages I read made me chuckle and some of the puns were funny. After a while, my eyes sort of glazed over and I lost interest. My goal is to read a book a week this year and this one took more like a month to read because I would read a few chapters, than have to stop and find something new to read.

I think this would have been more enjoyable as an audiobook. Then perhaps I wouldn’t have missed some of the puns. Some of the story just got a little too childish for me. The goat that referred to one of the other characters as “pooboy” was a poor attempt at being funny. This is coming from a reader who dies laughing at South Park’s Mr. Hanky.

Sorry, but the genre of “Did Not Finish” is what is listed on Goodreads. I powered through it but definitely don’t recommend it.

*NOTE: This summary is from Goodreads. I normally like to sum up books in my own words but this time (sigh) I couldn’t