very difficult to read... I have to admit that I was unable to finish the story. I did hand it to my 12 year old son to try.. but he didn't like it either. ( )

Have made several attempts to read this book, but just can't seem to get past the forest at the beginning. Will keep trying as I am determined to get through it and will return to review it once I have as I am always grateful to receive an advanced copy and would like to give the author my best effort.

The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin is Patrick Doud's first novel. From a purely technical standpoint, the novel is solid: the language is descriptive and there are no egregious grammatical errors. On the plot side of things the story is...generic. It feels as though someone gave Doud two checklists: things to make a good juvenile/YA novel and things every epic fantasy novel should strive to include (this second list cribbed heavily from the works of Tolkien). And Doud seems to dutifully follow these lists.

The unfortunate end result is that the story, pretty descriptions and turns of phrase notwithstanding, is not really very engaging. It begins by throwing as many "look, I'm a fantasy novel!!" things out as possible, but without giving a coherent structure. Many of the names of characters and places are very similar to one another, which adds a level of confusion and frustration. And the level of "coincidence" is far higher than I really care to have in my fantasy stories. ( )

Kind of cute and entertaining. Didn't really hold my attention that well. ( )

I had high hopes, but was a bit disappointed. First of all, the language seemed a bit much for a pre-teen level, but that assumes that older teen readers wouldn't be interested because of the age of the main character, Elwood. Secondly, the number of new species introduced in the new world became cumbersome. It felt like Doud was trying to create a new middle-earth, but it was not done well - it was just confusing and none of the species were really fleshed out enough to get to know them.

The additional plot element of Elwood's young boy lust for Drallah and then the queen just seemed ridiculous the way Doud skirted around it with his prose. The whole book just felt like a very slow read, which will not appeal to most of the appropriate aged readers who want to sink their teeth into an adventure. It just plods along.

By the end, I was looking forward to seeing what happened, but I felt the conclusion was a bit phony and sad and I really don't care enough about the characters to pick up a sequel. ( )