Book Review: The Supernaturalist

The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer
Release Date: October 2004
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Audience: Young Adult/Everyone
Pages: 267
Buy the Book: Amazon
Book Rating: 3/5









While I have not read the Artemis Fowl series (me not being part of its intended demographic) I have at least heard of it and, by accident, I picked this book up at Goodwill while trawling for books to read and review on this blog. I got home, noticed the scholastic logo on it, said 'whoops', and read it regardless. Hey, I paid 0.50 for this book. Don't tread on me!

ANYWAY,  this book takes place in the 3000s in North America (neither are specifically stated) and follows the adventures of Cosmo Hill and a group he unexpectedly joins: The Supernaturalists. Cosmo Hill, a orphan in an institute that tests various military, health, and beauty products, escapes the institute when a car the orphans are travelling in wrecks on the highway. Despite his escape, Cosmo is horribly injured. Comso's near death experience allows him to see blue creatures (dubbed 'Parasites') which seem to feed upon human life energies. The rest of the novel follows Cosmo and the group as they try to eradicate the Parasites to save human lives while trying to eek out an existence of their own.

For me, one of my main problems with this novel is its lack of description. A lot of the scenes and the city in general are given very vague descriptions. Yes, this is a young adult novel, I don't expect it to be bogged down in detail, but I have little understanding where buildings sit in relation to one another, their layout, and what they look like. However, on the flip side, when introducing something to the reader (rust mites for example) he only does so once, assuming the reader was paying attention. It was nice to see an author not holding the readers hand then entire time.

My other problem was with the characters. Much like the city, character descriptions are quite vague, save a few tertiary characters. Further, I felt that many of the characters, especially Stefan, were more caricatures than characters; with one dimensional personalities or little character growth, I felt the main characters, save Ditto and Cosmo, were pretty bland. That being said, the book does keep ones attention.

For the adult readers of this blog I would say pass on it unless you find it for $1 or something. Other than some cool aspects of the future, there is nothing new here and the main characters lack depth. But, if you have a younger reader in the household, I suppose this is worth checking out at your local library.