Diary style books have long been a hit with middle-grade readers and Louie Stowell unleashes a Thor sized hammer that will smash the competition to smithereens. So you better get the needle and thread ready because sides are about to be split; this is riotously entertaining, immensely enjoyable and is the funniest book I have read for a while.
Loki. God of lies, greatest trickster of them all, king of insults and master manipulator, has gone too far this time. After one prank too many, Odin has banished him to Earth in the guise of an eleven-year-old boy to learn some morals and hopefully return to Asgard a new and improved Loki. He has one month to do tedious and virtuous things to improve and better himself or be condemned to eternal torture - snakes and all. Banned from using his godly powers and with Thor tagging along and making him look bad, can Loki redeem himself and prove even a bad God can be good…
Insanely clever, brilliantly comical and with a generous smattering of Norse mythology, this is crammed full of naughtiness, malevolent thoughts and a bad God who is well and truly out of his depth as he tries to get his head around the point of being kind to others and doing good deeds.
Written in diary format, illustrations and text work in perfect tandem as Loki relates his troubled time on Earth in thirty-one hilarious daily extracts. Sharp and witty, Loki, along with his magical diary and its disembodied and sarcastic voice - a simulation of Odin himself - had me laughing-out-loud as the frustrations of life on Earth as a mere mortal take their toll on an exasperated trickster God. Loki is very, VERY bad at being good and he regales his life on Earth with the petulance of youth and as the mischievous and cruel prankster God that he is. When he’s not thinking up tricks and insults, telling lies, having negative thoughts and generally bemoaning the complete unfairness of the situation he provides sharp and all too accurate observations on mortal dwellings, food, capitalism, shopping, the tedium of school, lanyards, the questionable nature and false pretences of museums, ten pin bowling and cars. To keep up appearances and to add to Loki’s woes, brother Thor, Gods Heimdall and Hyrrokkin, and Fido the dog have come along for the ride and complete the happy family. Life is only made more unbearable by everyone’s adoration for Thor and Heimdall’s new found love of reading books that offer parenting advice - none of which is well received by Loki, God of chaos and destruction. Even when he tries to be good he gets it wrong - being brave, honest, humble, helpful and polite have their pitfalls. And what’s with having a conscience, that just makes life even more confusing! A clever point scoring system for being good adds further LOLs as for the most part Loki doesn’t do well. By day fifteen he has a ‘Loki Virtue Score’ that is so far into the negatives it is too big to count, has given up being good, made a deal with the Frost Giants to capture Thor and is set on taking over Asgard. We do eventually see the goodness within Loki although it takes some pretty dire circumstances and almost the entire book for him to unlock the kindness in his heart, to put another first and to display an act of compassion that proves he is not completely selfish. Whilst it may not be enough to convince Odin to let him back into Asgard, it does spare him from an eternity of torture and snakes which is great news as it means he’ll still be hanging around on planet Earth to write in another diary. Thor-some stuff! With huge thanks to Walker for the copy I received in exchange for an honest review. Recommended for 8+.
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