'Artemis Fowl' by Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl 1 and 3 (The Eternity Code), Eoin Colfer (3.0)

I will preface this review by saying these are Young Adult novels. I generally appreciate that genre and those books that respect the ‘Adult’ in that moniker. I found parts of this book series to be clever and funny, but the insertion of various whoopee cushion type instances made it feel farther towards the ‘Young’ side of the genre than I like. The main character, Artemis Fowl, is a pre-teen criminal genius. In the first book he is quite unlikeable – not surprising for a conceited, rich youngster. I did like the addition of the underworld, in this case defined as the place where the magical folk of the world have gone to escape the ‘mudders’, or humans. Artemis tricks someone to find out all the secrets of the Faeires and is determined to steal their gold (as we all know, they have pots of gold). Sadly, you are not rooting for him to win. At least by the end of the first book, he seems to soften and become more likeable. The third book revisits many of the same characters with the introduction of a criminal worse than Artemis. Now that we have an official bad guy, Artemis can be more of an anti-hero, which works better. Not bad for a quick escapist read, but doesn’t compete with many of the YA books as far as depth is concerned.