Inauspicious start.
I fully realize that this book is not written for a reader like myself. What's interesting is that we don't always seem to know who it IS written for: When I researching it to start with, all signs pointed towards Young Adult, but that's clearly incorrect. Young Adult features protagonists in the teenage range, maybe 15-17 or so, whereas Artemis is all of twelve. If anything, it's middle grade, and that's being generous to the writing style. Because the way the book patronizes the reader, I would expect it to be more for the lower end of such.
Seems a weird thing to say about a kids book: patronizing. But I'm serious. I think kids are a lot smarter than we necessarily give them credit for. This book lays everything down in such a heavyhanded manner that there's no room for nuance or inference, which I firmly believe kids CAN pick up on. You don't need a plot point beat into your face in quite the manner that Colfer does--with a mallet, over and over and over.
The characters are all extremely flat, and any dimension they might try to show feels forced. The worst offender is Artemis's mother, written like the author only has the barest glimmer of understanding of mental illness and disdained research, instead falling back on (in my opinion, damaging) stereotypes. Some of your readers might actually have family members with schizophrenia that don't remotely resemble the grab-bag of cliches that don't even apply to schizophrenia you assembled into Angeline Fowl. Not naming any names or anything.
On a more technical note, the POV shifts repeatedly in a single chapter, which is disorienting for a reader. Enough time needs to be spend in each POV to anchor the reader, or it feels like we're drifting all over the place. For this reason it can often be simpler, though by no means required, to stick to a single POV and eliminate the confusion.
So yes, in the vein of "Don't compare it to Harry Potter", I suppose that if I were not coming at this with a background of having read books before, it might fare better. But I don't think you should have to essentially not know any better to be able to enjoy a book if it's well-written. Like Harry Potter. Or Bridge to Terabithia. Or the entirety of the Redwall series, which is clearly written to a child's level and yet manages to not patronize. Hell, The Giver could arguably be middle grade too, if we're going based off of writing complexity and protagonist age, and it not only manages to use complicated and mature themes at kids' level but also uses a lot of inference instead of hammers-to-the-face. It can be done, well and often. Just not so much here.
Overall: 2 stars
Amazon: Artemis Fowl
More reviews: Artemis Fowl on Librarything (Average 3.75 stars)
Artemis Fowl on Goodreads (Average 3.79 stars)
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