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First Impression: A book full of plot holes and underdeveloped characters that were confusing for an adult let alone a middle grader. Impossible to recommend.

The Folk Smuggler book cover

I would like to express my thanks to Vid Weeks for allowing me to sample a gifted copy of The Folk Smuggler in exchange for an honest review. Although I did not enjoy this book, I’m sure the author would love to hear from some middle graders. Also worth noting is that this book forms part of a trilogy so those plot holes I refer to might just get filled in the next two books.

Who are the Folk?

There are ‘folk’ like you and me, big humans, ‘normal.’ We are not interested in them. Then there are ‘folk’ like Danand, Aoife, Kevin, and Dreen. Stranded in London following a shipwreck, the folk find themselves in perilous danger. Though smaller than the average human, these folk are not small enough and must avoid their prey at all cost. Their survival depends on it. However, being so destitute and far from home, the team needs to enlist help finding their way home to Galway. They cannot do it alone. The question is, is there someone pure of heart willing to put everything on the line to help the lost? Stick with The Folk Smuggler by Vid Weeks if you want to find out.

The Opening of The Folk Smuggler

Reading the book was confusing. The first chapter starts with a quick background about the stranded folk, who they are, and their distrust of humans. The next three chapters refer to a human child, Lisa. Through her, we meet her guardian, Nellie, and explore her house to find that the Victorian town house she inhabits houses a strange library in the conservatory. This is all very well and good, only, there are conversations that take place to reveal this information in which Lisa speaks one language and her interlocutor speaks something entirely different. All the conversations are disjointed, and although Lisa behaves like a petulant, spoiled child trying to call the shots, everyone she encounters reacts in the same way by ignoring her queries and changing the conversation to suit their own narratives with no explanation as to why. As an adult, I found keeping up with it all to be a chore. As a middle grade reader, I wonder if I would continue to work at the comprehension required to continue, given that by this point, 20% of the story has been ‘enjoyed’.

Main Concern with The Folk Smuggler

In a book of approx. 30,000 words spread over forty-two chapters, it is inevitable that there are going to be some really short ones. This current set-up allows for an average of 714 words per segment. The trouble with this is that there is barely any space to offer real depth, and so many chapters end with cliffhangers that personally don’t make sense and take too long to come back to.

Final Thoughts on The Folk Smuggler

The best thing about the book was the synopsis. It was inviting and promised a unique story of adventure. As a budding singer/actress, Lisa is best placed to use her talents to smuggle Danand and folk children back to Galway. However, the book tries to convey too much in too little by exploring manipulation, death, and first steps towards embodying talents. The way Ms. Rattlebow confuses Lisa upon their first meeting and subsequent mentoring sessions is the same confusion I dealt with about the entire story for the majority of the reading experience. For example, the chapter titles are short and well signposted in the sense that you know what is going to be discussed, but there is little coherence running from one chapter to the next. One minute we are witnessing Danand and Lisa meeting in the garden accidentally. Then we raced around central London looking for maps. Next, we are looking at a shipwreck. Why? How did we get from one place to the next and for what purpose? Sure, I can hazard a guess, but it shouldn’t be this hard to figure out when reading for pleasure. In terms of characters, I did not find any were well developed, again, it probably comes down to trying to do too much with the story in too few words. There were definitely too many, and I was unable to appreciate several of them. At this point, I am at an absolute loss as to who to recommend the book. Instead, I would urge a rewrite of at least twice the length and more filler information. There are far too many plot holes that do not make sense.

Quick Rating: ⭐ / PG Rated

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