My feelings about the second book in the Timmy Failure series largely mirrors the first. In Mistakes Were Made, quite a bit of the book's first half is familiarizing the reader with the characters and their story. The narrative of the second half sort of rushes through things, yet has some of the story's funniest moments. In Now Look What You've DoneStephan Pastis doesn't take nearly as much time setting the stage. The result is that the jokes start right from the beginning, and these moments are Timmy's best in the novel. Once the larger story is established, it actually begins to drag quite a bit. There's a balance in there somewhere that I imagine will be found in one of the subsequent books in the series.

I shall press on as I want to see what other hijinks Pastis can invent, and I'm most curious what will happen with Molly Moskins.

Despite the way she's portrayed, Molly's actually quite endearing. Molly, if you're reading this, please listen: If Timmy doesn't ever catch on, know that I do. I love the smell of tangerines and I think symmetry is vastly overrated. You will always have a special place in my heart. -CB

Mistakes Were Made is not the sort of book I'd normally pay much attention to. I'm not a huge fan of children's lit and this one looked a bit too juvenile for me (not that I'm not very childish at heart). I picked up this novel for one reason: Tom McCarthy, genius behind such movie gems as The Station Agent, Win Win, and Up, is adapting the novel to film. McCarthy isn't a filmmaker who deals in adaptations, so I was intrigued with what this book was all about.

Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that McCarthy has taken on this project. It's quirky, which is right up McCarthy's alley, but it has a different tone than McCarthy's usual “quirky with heavy underlying dramatic weight.” But enough about a film that doesn't even exist yet.

This is a hilarious book. The humor is fresh and often unexpected—even though Timmy's lack of common sense is established early, the disconnect is so absurd and finely drawn that I laughed out loud every time he reached a conclusion. This is the kind of humor that can be understood by children and adults alike, but may at times be lost on some children.

The narrative was great and the plot worked fine for the style. I was very much engaged for the bulk of the story. At the point where the story begins to wrap, however, the plot sort of fizzled. The conclusion was very rushed and not all that entertaining. For a novel which spent so much time setting up the dynamics of the narrative and the setting, as well as introducing us to a myriad of wonderful characters, I guess there just wasn't enough room to build a satisfactory ending. Hopefully, now that the stage is set, the following books in the series provide a stronger story arc. (And, yes, I do plan on continuing this series.)

The Timmy Failure movie is schedule for release in 2020. I'm sure given McCarthy's handling, it'll be a fabulous movie—though one cannot forget (and maybe not forgive) The Cobbler.

A couple of my kids have been reading this series since #1, and since one of my favorite comic strip writers wrote it, I always intended to read it. Then I stumbled upon Steve Usery's podcast interview with him, and I really wanted to. But haven't gotten around to it yet. I stumbled on to the audiobook last week and figured it'd be worth a shot -- especially with his appearance in town this last weekend. If I can make it amusing enough to bother reading, I'll tell you the story tonight of how my son and I didn't make it. But on to the book.

 

Timmy fancies himself a fantastic detective with a polar bear sidekick (named Total), he believes he's on the verge of becoming a multimillionaire with offices throughout the world. In reality, he's a lousy detective who can't solve even the easiest of cases, like "Who stole my Halloween candy?" when the victim's brother is literally surrounded by the evidence. You almost get the feeling you're headed for an Inspector Gadget-style conclusion to the mysteries, where things are solved accidentally, in spite of the detective. Nope -- Timmy cannot solve anything. He considers cases closed, but he's so far from the truth (and so near personal vendettas) that it's laughable. Which is the point, thankfully.

 

There's a level to all of this that's really sad -- Timmy's the child of a single mom (we don't know why, at least in this book), struggling to make ends meet, and Timmy's created this world in which he's thiiiiiis close to providing financial security for her. She's at the end of her rope with him, but finds ways to indulge and support his delusions and dreams (and get some actual completed homework from him). She dates a creep for a while, but thankfully, the fact that he and Timmy don't mesh too well dooms that.

 

Obviously, the big drawback to the audiobook format is that I don't get to see the drawings that accompany the text -- and that probably detracted a lot. Thankfully, Goldsmith did a great job -- the voice was a little annoying, but I'm sure that was intentional. I don't think I could listen to more than one of these at a time, but that's probably just me.

 

A cute story, best suited for younger readers, with enough grin-inducing lines to keep adults reading (and/or listening). I'll be back for more.

4 Stars, Buy it for the series I love the cover. But I can imagine it's going to piss some people off. No typically people who would read it however. It's been a while since I've done any reviewing and awhile since I've read any Pearls. As usual the introduction had me laughing and smiling. I love the treasuries with the running commentary from the author. I’d forgotten how these strips make me laugh. I liked the Facebook poke joke. I've been battling depression so while most of this was funny, there were the suicidal lemmings which made me uneasy. I know it's not the author’s fault but it was hard to find those jokes funny while I continue to recover from a bad depression. One of the things I did love, was the Mutts cross over. I love Mutts the comic strip and infact just finished a book. This book had the cross over strip in it which showed Rat (obnoxious character in Pearls) in a shelter stories strip for Mutts. Shelter stories are one of the types of strips that Patrick Mcdonnel runs and are beloved by many people including myself. They are usually tender hearted and sweet but in this case was funny. I did like the new penguins and I did like the vigelentte deer.

When Crocs Fly is a collection of Pearls Before Swine comics which are aimed a younger public. I would only recommend it to people familiar with the comics prior to reading it. 

 

Once again, follow the adventures of the many animals as they try to eat or prevent they get eaten. 

 

It was decent. Some of it was quite funny, not laughing out loud though, but many things were also mwah. I'm not sure how much of this is the result of me growing up, because I do recall I really liked the comic some years ago. Maybe it means I'm getting old. 

 

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!