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FindingJane
Nov 27, 2015FindingJane rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
The wretched city of Ratbridge is a secret home to an underground society of engineers (the boxtrolls), farmers (the gibbering cabbageheads) and crafters (the rabbit women). When this delicate balance is disrupted by unscrupulous men, Ratbridge finds itself headed towards disaster. “Here Be Monsters!” takes off running—and promptly trips over its own feet. A convoluted and improbable conglomeration of humor, fairy tale, conspiracy and whimsy, the novel throws so many things into its weird little stew that it’s hard to know where to look. There is a crazy, secret revenge plan by a bunch of top-hatted rogues, an invention that falls into the wrong hands, feral cheeses, pantomime horses, vain callipygian women obsessed with fashion and style, an amnesiac smiter with iron socks, laundry-handling rats, sea cows and the crossdressing maniac who is wrapped up in all of it. At times, the novel gets so caught up in its own lunacy that you wonder if there’s a point to it all. The revelation of the mystery plans and the trouncing of the villain is so absurd that it’s beyond laughter and more likely to raise eyebrows than a chuckle. This is lunacy that strains itself to be goofy and barely succeeds. (If you want a better story and a more streamlined plot, I strongly advise you to see the movie “The Boxtrolls”. It’s just as absurd but it cuts out some of the more outrageous elements, making for a much more coherent tale. It’s a rare case of the movie being better than the book.)