Hey guys so today I'm going to be doing a Short AF book review on the book "The Iron Man" by Ted Hughes. As usual this review is going to be short and sweet (like the title suggests), and spoiler free. (However there will be the goodreads synopsis in this blog post and sometimes they can contain spoilers but usually they don't, usually the blurb of the book is in the blog post but for some reason there's no blurb on my copy of The Iron Man. Just something to keep in mind if you're interested in reading this book.)
"Mankind must put a stop to the dreaded destruction caused by the Iron Man. A trap is set for him, but he cannot be kept down. Then, when a terrible monster from outer space threatens to lay waste to the planet, it is the Iron Man who finds a way to save the world."
So the first thing I quickly want to mention is I have never ever read this book before. Yes, I know you're usually supposed to read it as a kid but I never got the chance to. I also have never seen the movie but definitely will be doing so now that I've read the book! Whilst reading this book I decided to leave annotations on sticky notes in the book, this is the first time I've done this whilst reading a book that I'm going to be doing a Short AF review on because normally I write one a couple of hours after reading the book so it is fresh in my mind. However, my laptop was broken so couldn't do that so if the format seems different that is why. If you prefer this format also, please leave a comment down below. One of the first things I noticed in the book was the silhouette style of art in it. I loved all the drawings in the book and it made a better reading experience. Some of the art took up only small portions of the page and some pieces took up two pieces but they we're all stunning. One of the things I had a love hate relationship with was the amount of short sentences in the book. I loved it because it's a kids book so it made sense for it to be wrote in that way, and sometimes brought out the urgency in what the writer was trying to convey, however other times it made the book hard to keep up with and I found myself having to re read those sentences a couple of times. The book also immerses you using a lot of sounds and colours to describe things, especially when it comes to how the iron man is feeling. It allows you to picture what is happening in your head and I love books that are that immersive. I loved that Hogarth was so brave and kind, he was an extremely relatable character and is definitely a character kids can look up to, I honestly wrote as an annotation "Hogarth has a heart of GOLD" and I stand by that. The amount of empathy that boy has for a kid of his age is unbelievable. The magic that Ted has placed in the real world in this book is pretty amazing, as a child I would have really appreciated this as I was the kind of kid who wanted to find magic everywhere. You find yourself empathising with a lot of the characters in this book, and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who has children, or anyone who just wants a short read as the book is only 80 pages and most are filled with pictures. I gave this book a 3 out of 5 star rating on goodreads (but you better believe if it was me as a kid reading this it probably would have been a 5 out of 5 stars).
What did you think of this book? Did you read it when you were younger or have you not read it yet? Do you have any movies or books that you recommend or want me to do a short AF review on? Please let me know in the comments down below!
Have a wonderful day.
Love Lyndsay.
xo
