Sunday, May 5, 2013

Timmy Failure Mistakes Were Made by Stephan Pastis


Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made

Here's a description from Goodreads:

Take eleven-year-old Timmy Failure — the clueless, comically self-confident CEO of the best detective agency in town, perhaps even the nation. Add his impressively lazy business partner, a very large polar bear named Total. Throw in the Failuremobile — Timmy’s mom’s Segway — and what you have is Total Failure, Inc., a global enterprise destined to make Timmy so rich his mother won’t have to stress out about the bills anymore. Of course, Timmy’s plan does not include the four-foot-tall female whose name shall not be uttered. And it doesn’t include Rollo Tookus, who is so obsessed with getting into "Stanfurd" that he can’t carry out a no-brainer spy mission. From the offbeat creator of Pearls Before Swine comes an endearingly bumbling hero in a caper whose peerless hilarity is accompanied by a whodunit twist. With perfectly paced visual humor, Stephan Pastis gets you snorting with laughter, then slyly carries the joke a beat further — or sweetens it with an unexpected poignant moment — making this a comics-inspired story (the first in a new series) that truly stands apart from the pack.

 I liked the character of Timmy but am curious how much others will enjoy him.  Maybe it's his over confidence in his detective skills or his bumbling nature, he just isn't really as good at crime solving as he thinks he is. Yet, maybe that is his charm.  Timmy does land himself in some interesting predicaments and I can see children enjoying how he gets out of them.  Timmy's 1500 pound sidekick business partner, Total the polar bear was hard to imagine wandering around solving cases with him but the illustrations of the two were very well done.  I believe this is the kind of book that will resonate with 8 to 12 year old's who enjoy diary and comic book illustrations with their stories.  I am curious where the story with Timmy and Total will go next and will look out for the next in the series.   Overall, an enjoyable (three out of five) read.  My copy was from the public library.  

2 comments:

  1. This was a tiny bit young for my group but I will probably buy it due to the popularity of notebook novels.

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  2. The illustrations are very cute, but yes a little on the younger side.

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