Skulduggery Pleasant (16) – A Mind Full of Murder

mediocre entry at best. gone woke and most of the focus is on the fact that it's woke , less detail in the story, not a very strong villian to stand by. magic useage at a minimum, fighting wise. too much focus on how smart skullduggery is rather than what he has been all these years ehich was funny. this book lacked the humour we would have all become accustomed to from skullduggery. I will read the next 2 titles in the trilogy but I can honestly say that with the woke shift. I'll be keeping this new title and any further newer titles away from my future children and will only show them the past entries .

OK, but not great. Too much is resolved 'off screen' as it were, by Skulduggery. VC feels like a part-player in her own story, SP is a walking Deus Ex Machina, while Winter does provide glimpses of the good characterisation we expect - even though her own plot line skates along at a crazy speed with barely any depth to it at all. Landy expects readers to be up to speed on past characters and gathered abilities, but I found I had forgotten more than the plot allowed for. Not a huge setback, but a bit more exposition wouldn't hurt. I notice that some of the recent entries in the series have been criticised as 'woke' - presumably because they contain LGBTQ characters. Aside from the fact that that's not what woke means, there's nothing in these books on those themes that are inappropriate for kids, given that you are presumably ok with people frequently being eviscerated, blown up, sliced, diced, and otherwise made very dead. Decent effort, but better is expected by now.

I liked it a lot, it's shorter than the last couple were but it's okay I hope Landy gets to rest up, fair point though I do feel as though not bringing in the sanctuaries for help in this one led to a lot of the mess.