Jakob Wegelius’ middle-grade novel The Murderer’s Ape tells the story of Sally Jones, an anthropomorphic gorilla working closely with a man known as ‘The Chief.’ Together, the two journey all around the coastlines and rivers of Europe and its surrounding areas aboard a grand sailing ship known as the Hudson Queen. When a midnight expedition leaves the Chief falsely accused of murder, Sally Jones goes on a grand and fantastical journey across the globe to try and clear The Chief’s name, as well as set the record straight about the true events of the night that lead to the Chief’s imprisonment.
The Murderer’s Ape is told from Sally Jones’ perspective in the first person, and as soon as the reader delves into the novel’s first few chapters, they are sure to notice that Sally Jones displays many noble qualities and demonstrates many aspects of moral fibre, intelligence and cunning ability. Throughout the course of the novel, Sally Jones works alongside various benevolent characters, such as Ana Molina, Senor Fidardo and Ayesha, who are all introduced gradually as the novel progresses. Readers are sure to enjoy the fact that this novel has a range of different themes and elements woven into its five hundred and eighty-eight pages: it offers mystery, adventure, action and heart-warming senses of companionship and determination.
While this novel is quite fantastic, I did have a few issues with it: though it is a reasonably easy read despite its hefty page number, readers are sure to pick up on the fact that there are certain parts throughout the novel that seem to have no particular additions to the plot and just seem to act as a time-filler. While this novel does incorporate some very interesting and engaging scenes, certain pages containing uninteresting, and ultimately redundant, dialogue and development seem to parry the rich sense of adventure and intrigue that Wegelius manages to convey throughout the novel.
Other contributing factors to the novel’s minor downfalls include its number of chapters. At the beginning of the book, readers are given a chapter index, and they will see that the novel sports eighty chapters over the course of a novel that is just short of six hundred pages. I found these breaks in the novel unnecessary and rather short. I could not help but wonder if they were only there in order to draw younger readers away from the fact that this novel is rather hefty.
All in all, this novel is a great read for middle-grade readers, and while I do think young adult readers may enjoy this novel, it definitely is marketed and written for younger audiences, and some more advanced readers may find its writing bland and uneventful. However, this was a fantastic read and I will be sure to keep this book in the back of my mind when recommending novels to younger audiences.
For anyone who loves fairy tales with a twist, the Rondo series is the perfect way to escape to a world of magic and mystery. Rodda creates a new layer to the classic formula, drawing from familiar characters such as evil queens, talking animals and mythical creatures, but the addition of two protagonists from the …
In the first book of a fantastic new middle-grade series ‘Tilly and the Boookwanderers‘ we follow Matilda ‘Tilly’ Pages, an eleven-year-old book lover who is cared for by her loving grandfather and grandmother in the five-storey London bookshop Pages & Co. Tilly has lived with her grandparents for as long as she could remember, since …
A Map of Days continues Ransom Rigg’s macabre and masterful Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children book series, with the aforementioned novel being the fourth in the series. The novel follows our protagonist Jacob once again, who is sent on a murderous road trip in order to complete his late grandfather’s work and rescue a …
The trials and tribulations of an English upper class noble are thrown into increasingly dangerous–but equally hilarious–lengths in American author Mackenzi Lee’s novel ‘The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue’. The story centres around Lord Henry Montague as his affluent father sends him away on a Grand Tour throughout Europe with his sister and close …
Released to the public on September 3rd of 2018, Violet Grace’s novel The Girl Who Fell tells the tale of Francesca ‘Chess’ Raven, an adolescent girl living with a woman named Gladys after the death of her parents. Chess Raven is a hacker, and becomes swept away in a grand and interesting adventure after the …
Scythe is a dystopian young adult novel by Neal Shusterman, and it tells the tale of a futuristic society in which all forms of death have been eradicated, and the only way a human can die is by being ‘gleaned’, a word which is synonymous with murder. However, only a few selection of trained individuals–known …
Book Review – The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius
The Murderer’s Ape is told from Sally Jones’ perspective in the first person, and as soon as the reader delves into the novel’s first few chapters, they are sure to notice that Sally Jones displays many noble qualities and demonstrates many aspects of moral fibre, intelligence and cunning ability. Throughout the course of the novel, Sally Jones works alongside various benevolent characters, such as Ana Molina, Senor Fidardo and Ayesha, who are all introduced gradually as the novel progresses. Readers are sure to enjoy the fact that this novel has a range of different themes and elements woven into its five hundred and eighty-eight pages: it offers mystery, adventure, action and heart-warming senses of companionship and determination.
While this novel is quite fantastic, I did have a few issues with it: though it is a reasonably easy read despite its hefty page number, readers are sure to pick up on the fact that there are certain parts throughout the novel that seem to have no particular additions to the plot and just seem to act as a time-filler. While this novel does incorporate some very interesting and engaging scenes, certain pages containing uninteresting, and ultimately redundant, dialogue and development seem to parry the rich sense of adventure and intrigue that Wegelius manages to convey throughout the novel.
Other contributing factors to the novel’s minor downfalls include its number of chapters. At the beginning of the book, readers are given a chapter index, and they will see that the novel sports eighty chapters over the course of a novel that is just short of six hundred pages. I found these breaks in the novel unnecessary and rather short. I could not help but wonder if they were only there in order to draw younger readers away from the fact that this novel is rather hefty.
All in all, this novel is a great read for middle-grade readers, and while I do think young adult readers may enjoy this novel, it definitely is marketed and written for younger audiences, and some more advanced readers may find its writing bland and uneventful. However, this was a fantastic read and I will be sure to keep this book in the back of my mind when recommending novels to younger audiences.
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