Reading Skulduggery Pleasant for the first time

This review was updated on 01/04/24 because of some wack formatting stuff that I decided to fix. Apart from some few minor tweaks to help make this generally more readable, none of the writing has been changed even if I was desperate to erase all indication of cringe 18-year-old Eleanor writing. Original review is still as it was first published on my Goodreads on July 30th 2020.

One of the best quotes in the book:

"Serpine used my wife and child as a weapon against me. In order to do so, he had to kill them. He took my family's death and made it about me. Valkyrie, when you die, it will be your death and yours alone. Let it come to you on your own terms."

The recurring quote that I couldn't take seriously every freakin' time because I swear its a meme:

"Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

So I feel like I missed out on a lot of great children's/YA books when I was a pre-teen.

Don't get me wrong, I loved reading my Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus books, devouring Beast Quests and getting through quite a bit of Jacqueline Wilson, but there are still a whole bunch of classic teen series that I haven't just didn't read. I wanted to change that and I decided to start here! (Mainly because I already owned an old copy that I swiped from my brother when he was getting rid of his books. Whoo, freebie).

I can whole-heartedly say that I LOVED it. I'm now eighteen so maybe a touch past the primary target audience but it literally doesn't matter in the slightest. This didn't feel like I was reading a "children's" book at all. Heck, if you're a middle aged adult, I'd still recommend it to you. Its glorious.

From the first chapters I instantly fell in love with Skulduggery as a character just because the wit was simply MWAH *chief's kiss* and it only got better as the book went on. The back-and-forth he has with every character he meets is just so entertaining, especially with our 12-yr-old protagonist Stephanie, who is a whole reason to read this book in itself. A FEMALE PROTAGONIST IN A SERIES LIKE THIS! We love to see it.

The reason I point this out with emphasis is because when I think of these type of action-adventure books that popped up a lot around the time of my childhood, they often featured young boy protagonists, which I expect was also the main target audience (as well as what the majority of writers were good at writing as they were most likely men too). Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl, Alex Rider etc. Of course at the time, I didn't take note of this. I was just a young girl who loved adventure books and didn't care what gender the main character was. Also, again, I read Percy Jackson mostly which has a plethora of exciting female characters within it so it wasn't like I didn't see my representation in anything at all.

One of the few series along a similar vein as this that sticks out for featuring female characters was Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series (another great series in itself), which was very clearly centred for young girls who dreamed of kicking butt and still being able to wear lip-gloss at the same time if they wanted.

Skulduggery Pleasant however feels very unisex and I love it. It feels perfectly balanced for young boys and girls alike who don't think seriously about gender representation yet, but want to see themselves in the adventures they read. Stephanie is a dynamic female protagonist, matching Skulduggery in wit and rebellion, and wasn't tropey to read about because she wasn't overwhelmingly "I'm-not-like-the-other-girls-in-my-class" or "I'm-one-of-the-boys". ( Note: It is perfectly fine to have a female character like this, but don't do it in a way that pitches your women/girls against each other or forces either a stereotype or a strong rejection of societal stereotypes. Both can be not only annoying to read, but actually quite influential on young readers, especially girls. But that's a whole discussion for another time ). She was just herself and I loved her for that. As a child, she still has a lot of learning and growth to go, but the books don't downplay its strong female vibe since she'd still determined and tricky. We also have Tanith - our classic woman badass.

But there's nothing in this book that centres it only as a rebellious girls book despite its protagonist. (Although, boys shouldn't shy away from cool books with female protagonists. Us girls happily made do with all your male main characters just fine, its no big deal guys). Skulduggery is the perfect other half of this dynamic duo with that suave, exciting and rough-and-tumble detective that I'm sure young boys (and older boys too) would love. And hey, if you're anything else on the gender spectrum, then you get to take your pick: they're all amazing characters.

Now I can absolutely nitpick this book. Does it follow the idea that women have to replicate masculine behaviour to appear strong? Maybe a little. I wouldn't say Stephanie or Tanith come across as strongly "feminine" characters, but neither would I say that they are treated any different from the male characters. It's just something to think about. China Sorrows is the most feminine character in this book, but she can be rather displaced from the action, so I'm removing her from this particular train of thought.

Are all the characters vastly different? Again, its not really obvious. For our central four/five characters that we follow, while they are absolutely all distinct and individuals in their own right, I wouldn't exactly say they're all shockingly different from each other. They all are quite suave and witty, calculating and tough in their own style, but I can't think of much that separates them vastly in terms of personality traits and moral compass (EXCEPT maybe Skulduggery's emphasis on revenge on Serpine that is widely discouraged by his peers). But again, even while I thought of this, it didn't taint my enjoyment of the book in anyway and there's still lots of books left in the series, so plenty of room for more interesting and intriguing characters to come in and switch things up if they want to.

But these are very minor nit-picking points that just flashed across my head while reading because I'm a hyper-critical reader and looks at everything through a lens like I'm about to write an essay on it. None of these things barred my enjoyment for the story.

Moving on from the characters, the narrative structure was also a strong point.

It feels fast-paced and snappy, with not much filler and instead our two characters move from each important scene to the next without delay, which is good for an action book. And speaking of action, the writing of this book also felt very cinematic to me. It was written in a way that for some reason I could imagine it as a TV show or some other visual medium. In fact, I'd almost say I'd recommend it to be transformed into film or TV. The only thing that would stop me is fear of ruining what is already wonderful. But done right, I imagine there's a lot of exciting groundwork that would translate really effectively into CGI, special effects and screenplay if given the proper attention. ( if that happens, hit me up, I'm happy to try my hand at screenwriting; that's what my degree's gonna come in handy for).

I think Derek Landy has set up a perfect base for a series too. As a first book, it really feels like the start of something, and a lot of set-up has been put in that will be fun to develop and carry on in the future books. For example, Stephanie really starts from nothing and (minor spoiler I guess?) she doesn't suddenly get good overnight like we often see in a hero's journey (because runtime is a thing and plot gotta plot). She has miles still to go and lots to learn as she goes forward. In this book, all she really has is her moxie and I think that's a really good choice. Because in real life, people don't just become awesome overnight or when they're put in one stressful situation (sometimes they might, but not always. Especially not children who are still learning to grow) and having a story that younger readers can read and follow as a protagonist literally picks up as they go along and gradually becomes a badass can be a lot more inspiring and useful for them than a heroine that just had to pull themselves together and then suddenly can do anything. It makes me excited to see how much she'll have grown by the end of the series. There's also lots of other things that happened in this pilot book that I'm excited to see crop up again; Ghastly, The Cleaver and Mr Bliss to name a few. A great start.

That being said, I am gonna nit-pick again. I don't really feel like she did much in the climax. Like she was definitely there and contributed, but I still feel like Skulduggery was the one that won that fight and Stephanie just held Serpine off or aggravated him enough to let Skulduggery get the upper hand again when he came back. I thought she'd have at least one great idea to help defeat Serpine. For example, if she had been the one to have the idea to trick Serpine into accidently destroying the Book of Names and then Skulduggery finishes him off. At one point, Stephanie mentions that she sees her name in the open Book of Names on the floor and I thought she was going to see/find Serpine's name (by coincidence or not, I wouldn't have minded much) and then be able to influence him because she knows his real name. Or at least said it out loud so that Skulduggery could use Serpine's name, since he's got more magical power. Maybe then Serpine could have become a forced ally and a future interesting character in books to come (kinda like what they do in Fairy Tail all the time with their antagonists who become friends in later seasons. Looking at you Gajeel). Nothing like that happened though, but it was still an action-packed finale.

Narratively, I also feel like we were told a lot of things upfront. Maybe this comes from the first primary audience intended to be pre-teens/teens, so then in that case this is probably more preferable, but I didn't feel like I needed to put in any sort of work to figure anything out. Skulduggery, being the amazing detective he's written to be, often figures everything out before we even need to. He just works them out then tells us/Stephanie. Although many things are often hinted at before, so a particularly observant reader could probably still get some theories in before the reveals, making this critique either a pro or a con, depending on what type of reader you are.

And finally, one scene I particularly want to highlight is Tanith's introduction scene. I think it was expertly done and very effective. More slight spoilers ahead, but nothing to do with anything that isn't established pretty early on:

When we first meet her, the scene ends with her being recruited by Mr Bliss. This is really interesting because we later firmly know that Mr Bliss is not to be trusted. That then skews our perception of Tanith. Which side was Bliss recruiting her for? Does she know? And then to have her be such a fun and friendly character that forms a friendship with Stephanie makes us like her so much, but still have that tiny inkling of suspicion in the back of our heads that we don't want to be true. This played on my mind a lot, wondering if she was suddenly going to betray them. I don't know if this will ever come into play again - I feel like it might not, but there are a lot of books so I could definitely be wrong, it wouldn't be a surprise - but it was a very effective plot device to give us that particular chapter early on. However part of me does wonder if I interpreted that wrong and maybe I'm missing something here. If so than my suspicion was misplaced and unnecessary, but it was a core thought while I was reading this book so it's worth talking about. It may have been weird at the time - the sudden detachment from our protag characters - but in the long run, I think it was a great tactic.

Overall, I think it's very clear how much I enjoyed this book. A perfect recommendation for your preteens who like a bit of action (and maybe a sprinkle of blood and guts? Its in there a touch, but I wouldn't say its heavy. Maybe that's just my opinion though). My critiques were small and vastly overshadowed by my pure entertainment while reading this book and I am very sad that I didn't read this when I was 13/14yrs. At least now, at 18, I can still appreciate it and perhaps on a more critical level than I would have before.

I think it's an excellent start to my "I'm Not Like Other Books" series and I hope to write a more fuller review on the series as a whole when I get to the end (so like ten years later then), looking at this in more detail and probably exploring it even more in terms of diversity, representation, tropes and possible influence it could have had on teens and finally judging if it stands the test of time.

But for the first book? A riveting success. Cannot wait to read more!

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Here are just some messy notes that I made on my phone while reading that I didn't know how to implement into my review but I think are funny to include anyway:

- Definition of lots to resolve and hardly any time left in the book (everything going wrong)

- Every time Tanith says "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough", I still hear a very particular meme. (was it in a vine?? Or just tiktok? It's definitely there in my head... maybe it's from an Edgar Wright film? )

- The Sanctuaries Gaol sounds like literally one of the most inhumane things ever?

Spoilers!

- If Tanith is dead I riot

- She's not thank God

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Something I didn't manage to squeeze in on Goodreads!:

Wondering why I chose that best quote? Well, it's because it instantly made me think of the dead wife trope.

For those who don't know, the dead wife trope is often brought up as a feminist critique in which women are often used un film (but I guess it's relevant to any story really) as an accessory to a man's emotional journey/growth by being the wife/girlfriend/lover of the protagonist and dead (kids is optional). For example, Cobb's background from Inception falls very well into this category.

And to an extent, so does Skulduggery. But notice how in this quote, Landy almost outright addresses this? He has Skulduggery directly recognise that the death of his family was all about him and his pain, therefore seemingly taking something away from them as their own individual people. When he says this, it's very clear that he purposefully doesn't want Stephanie to be known as an accessory to his life and personal suffering/struggles. If she dies, he wants it to be her own and hers only. He acknowledges that this wasn't a right his wife was given.

Do I think this was something Derek Landy included purposefully? Absolutely not.

It was just very cool to see it and I just wanted to mention it.