Soh Kam Yung reviewed Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis
A humorous fantasy book about not meeting expectations.
4 stars
A funny and interesting book that makes fun of the usual fantasy tropes about good (White) and bad (Dark) Wizards, heroes, princesses, goblins and villages. The protagonist, Gav, wakes up in a room filled with dark wizarding material, with no memories of how he ended up there, and expects to be tortured by a returning Dark Wizard. Only, it turns out that he is the Dark Wizard, Gavrax, in a castle with goblins, a grovelling man servant, and a princess that he captured. Now he just has to figure out how to be bad and what he's supposed to do.
Acting out the role of a Dark Wizard, and hoping nobody else notices that he hasn't a clue about what he is doing, Gav realises that whatever it was Gavrax did to become a Dark Wizard, Gav's heart isn't in it. But not being bad is harder than it looks, …
A funny and interesting book that makes fun of the usual fantasy tropes about good (White) and bad (Dark) Wizards, heroes, princesses, goblins and villages. The protagonist, Gav, wakes up in a room filled with dark wizarding material, with no memories of how he ended up there, and expects to be tortured by a returning Dark Wizard. Only, it turns out that he is the Dark Wizard, Gavrax, in a castle with goblins, a grovelling man servant, and a princess that he captured. Now he just has to figure out how to be bad and what he's supposed to do.
Acting out the role of a Dark Wizard, and hoping nobody else notices that he hasn't a clue about what he is doing, Gav realises that whatever it was Gavrax did to become a Dark Wizard, Gav's heart isn't in it. But not being bad is harder than it looks, especially when people have expectations of what a Dark Wizard does, which Gav no longer wants to do. It doesn't help when it turns out that the princess he captured has a role in a dark spell that he and a group of other Dark Wizards will perform in a few days time at his castle, and in a midst of a garlic festival in the village below the castle. Throw in a horde of heroes that is on the way to rescue the princess, and mayhem ensues.
In the end, Gav would need the help of the princess, the goblins and the villagers (who have a fatalistic viewpoint due to the presence of Dark Wizards) if he is to thwart the spell and have a chance to save himself and the others.
