Review: Diary of a Mad Brownie by Bruce Corville

Sunday, June 14, 2015

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Diary of a Mad Brownie by Bruce Corville


Release Date: June 30th 2015
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Age Group: Children's
Pages: 208
Source: ARC from publisher at BookCon 2015

Summary (goodreads.com): Told in diary entries and other “documents,” this magical, modern-day comedy by the master of funny fantasy, Bruce Coville is a story filled with laugh-out-loud humor and heart.

Angus is a brownie. No, not the kind you eat! He’s a tiny magical creature that loves to do chores. Angus has just “inherited” a new human girl, Alex. To say that Alex is messy would be an understatement. She’s a total hurricane-like disaster—and she likes it that way, thank you very much! Living with each other isn’t easy but Angus and Alex soon learn there is a curse that binds them. What’s worse, it threatens Alex’s family! Working together, Angus and Alex will set out to break the curse . . . without killing each other first . . . hopefully.


My Review: 

Hopefully everyone reading this review knows what a brownie is. Everyone who asked me what I was reading thought I meant the desert and that was disheartening to me. I love that this book has a brownie as the main character. I adore them and I feel they need more main stream attention. I should not have had to explain to almost everyone who asked me what a brownie was. Most of the time I had to refer to the Spiderwick Chronicles' Thimbletack as an example and even then most just looked vaguely confused! I hope Diary of a Mad Brownie brings a wave of books about the little creatures! I demand that it replaces the worn out stories of vampires and werewolves or the world gone dystopian that everyone is so fond of now!

Now that that is out of my system… I adored this book and that it was written with so many points of view. I like the connection between Angus and Alex at the beginning of the book as they start their respective diary/journal. The irony that Angus whose main duty and love is to clean gets stuck with the messiest girl alive is perfect. I love their relationship and how it grows. I really hope this book gets a sequel; more of their adventures would be amazing to read! I love that the book is set up through Angus' diary to begin with but as he journeys to Alex and begins to wonder what she's like and what his new home contains there is supporting evidence in the form of letters that confirm that everything he doesn't want of his new life is exactly what he's getting (such as a cat).

I adore Angus's writing style. He has a way with words does that mad brownie. He's old fashioned as well as Scottish and it shows in his grammar and spelling. His little temper tantrums are hilarious and his insults brilliant! I love that he has that harmatia in his temper as well. It creates a lot of conflict for him and it is interesting to see him trying to better himself by keeping it under control. (Diary of a Mad Brownie also features amazingly beautiful drawings as well and they alone are worth checking out this book!)

My only complaint, and it isn’t really even a real complaint is that I wish there was a prequel story about Angus and his Sarah. Sarah is so important to Angus and while I completely understand why the story begins with Angus about to meet his new assignment, I also feel as if I missed something because I didn’t get to read Sarah’s story as well. How exactly did they become such friends? I just think that it would be interesting to explore that relationship more.

Diary of a Mad Brownie is a fantastic read! I recommend it to everyone, young and old! 

~Laura!

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