This book is laugh-out-loud funny for anyone who's been to DisneyWorld more than once. You'll easily recognize all the thinly veiled people, places and things in DisneyWorld in the book, and the author does a good job of skewering them with a great deal of affection for all things Mouse-related. The characters are all engaging and the main mystery is well-paced against the backdrop of a relentlessly banal family facation.
However, I could only give it three stars for several reasons. First of all, the author is in dire need of an editor. There were run-on sentences on nearly every page, and he seems to have a rather weak grasp of comma usage. Secondly, the cast of thousands approach doesn't quite work here; many of the park employees have interchangeable personalities, and the dialogue is often contrived. Worst yet, there are several incredibly racist sequences in which the main character makes obnoxious assumptions about Latino characters, and then is shocked when the Latino characters can speak English and aren't complete and utter buffoons. We're supposed to think this is hilarious, because the author, presuming everyone reading this book is white, treats the reader as though we're in on the joke. I just ended up thinking the main character was really stupid and ignorant, and I don't think that's what he was going for.
I think with some really aggressive editing, this book could be excellent, but as it stands, it's quite unpolished and rough around the edges.
However, I could only give it three stars for several reasons. First of all, the author is in dire need of an editor. There were run-on sentences on nearly every page, and he seems to have a rather weak grasp of comma usage. Secondly, the cast of thousands approach doesn't quite work here; many of the park employees have interchangeable personalities, and the dialogue is often contrived. Worst yet, there are several incredibly racist sequences in which the main character makes obnoxious assumptions about Latino characters, and then is shocked when the Latino characters can speak English and aren't complete and utter buffoons. We're supposed to think this is hilarious, because the author, presuming everyone reading this book is white, treats the reader as though we're in on the joke. I just ended up thinking the main character was really stupid and ignorant, and I don't think that's what he was going for.
I think with some really aggressive editing, this book could be excellent, but as it stands, it's quite unpolished and rough around the edges.
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