For a book that had a fox in it, I have to say I’m rather disappointed that I hated The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse. Charlie Mackesy’s book ended up as the book of choice at Barnes and Noble, which is perhaps the only reason I knew it existed in the first place. And, you know me. I’ll read anything with a fox in it. But, that said, I absolutely hated this.
Like a Handmade Motivational Quote Series
Okay, so I get it. The author did a bunch of simple drawings and wrote a very simple story chock full of motivational quotes promoting kindness. At surface level, fine, it’s not a bad book. There’s some benefit to a good message like this being sent. It’s even nice to see the author get something for his artwork. But that does not mean that this is bestseller level material. It does not mean I am going to rave to my friends about it. And it definitely doesn’t mean I want to buy it.
This book honestly just feels like a massive waste of money to me. It’s like a motivational book that’s trying to be somewhat hip and woke or unique and just ends up being annoying. Oh, you don’t start at the beginning of books? How special of you. Oh, you wanna write this in ridiculously hard to read font because art? How unique!
Masterpiece or Invisible Clothes?
I honestly don’t get how hyped this book got. What are you going to do with it once you’ve read it? Read it again? None of the characters had enough personality to really care about them. They’re not something you fell in love with as a child so you desperately want to hold onto it for nostalgia reasons. The story is so pointless that there’s literally no point in reading it a second time. So, it’ll sit on your coffee table then. Where you can brag about it to all the friends you have even though it’s completely useless as a book.
This book isn’t the masterpiece so many people seem intent on pretending to be. It feels like The Emperor’s New Clothes. So many people have said how amazing this book is and so everyone else is agreeing just so they aren’t completely left out. When, in reality, this book is not the magnificent thing so many are claiming it is. It’s just a book of feel-good, kindness promoting quotes that you could literally pull out of the air in front of you or find with a quick google search.
The art is just okay. The story is stupid. The quotes, while nice, don’t really mean anything in the end. I liked the fox.
There’s nothing special about this book and the only uniqueness comes in the fact that very few motivational quote books come alongside a group of characters. That doesn’t make this a masterpiece, though. And I, for one, am not going to pretend to see invisible clothes.
I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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