Richard Yancey

Through a series of dangerous and violent misadventures, teenage loser Alfred Kropp rescues King Arthur's legendary sword Excalibur from the forces of evil.

The extraordinary adventures of Alfred Kropp

Kirsten Simkiss

There are two reasons why I read through a book really quickly. Reason number one: I'm absolutely in love with the book and can't put it down. Reason number two: I can't stand the book and I'm reading it just to finish it faster.

This was, unfortunately, firmly in the category of reason number two. This book was far from good. I can't think of anything I felt the book did well aside from describing how an underaged driver was driving an expensive sports car at 120 mph and food. The characters were water thin stereotypes and the plot was predictable and pointless. Others had claimed the story was witty, but honestly, it really wasn't. All the female characters existed to belittle the main character, who was constantly put down as a mentally handicapped kid who happened to be massive. There is no real resolution to how he views himself, despite that being the main plot point. I just feel like the characters didn't grow at all over the course of the book.

The fact that it completely disregards actual Arthurian legend, the very basis of it's plot line, is something I'm not sure I disliked, but I didn't like how they did it. I think it could have been handled way better.

The book is easy enough to read. The vocabulary is somewhat limited throughout the book, making it easy to speed through this. Unfortunately, it does a thing that I hate in books meant for younger readers: it assumes that the reader is unintelligent. It also pushes Christian views, which grates on my nerves a bit but I suppose it's not entirely unexpected in an Arthurian based story.

I wholly just did not enjoy this book. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

The extraordinary adventures of Alfred Kropp

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