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jenbsbooks 's review for:
The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear
by Walter Moers
Hmmm ... not sure how I felt about this one. I had it in all three formats (got on my radar as a random pickup at a thrift store, borrowed in audio/kindle from the x.library). One the one hand, the audio had SO many unique voices (the talented Bronson Pichot) but also some YELLING/CRASH which grated some ... yet the print copies had fun illustrations. I went primarily with the audio, but glanced through the Kindle/physical copy too.
This was divided into the 13 1/2 lives as the book chapters, although when you finish up chapter 7 (over halfway to 13 1/2) you're only 32% of the way through the book. The final "lives" get more time ...
Based on the cartoon cover, the big blue bear, the fantasy feel and comparison to Shel Silverstein, I was thinking that despite the heft (almost 700 pages) that this might be middle-grade. GR and SG do have it listed as YA, but, well as BlueBear himself says, he has quite the vocabulary! Lots of less common words, mixing in some that I notice here too ... nadir, arcane, deign, swathed, caromed, preternatural, ablutions, detritus, sibilance, vituperating, assignation, hirsute, apogee ... lots more too that I didn't mark as I was listening, not as easy to stop and highlight).
This really WAS completely divided into his lives/adventures - most completely unrelated.
1. My Life as a MiniPirate
2. My Life with the Hobgoblins
3. My Life on the Run
4. My Life on Gourmet Island
5. My Life as a Navigator
6. My Life in the Gloomberg Mountains
7. My Life in the Great Forest
8. My Life in the Dimensional Hiatus
9. My Life in the Demerana Desert
10. My Life in Tornado City
11. My Life in the Bollog's Head
12. My Life in Atlantis
13. My Life Aboard the SS Moloch
13 1/2 ... My Half-Life at Peace
Even though it isn't until Ch6 when Bear enrolls in Professor Nightingale’s Nocturnal Academy, from the first chapter, we get little 'inserts' of information on every topic imaginable From the ‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’ by Professor Abdullah Nightingale ... with that full introduction every time. It gets a little repetitive, even though the narrator switches up inflections to try to keep it interesting/entertaining.
Honestly - I don't know if I felt the need to shift things up (taking a break from this and reading something else in-between) or if I just felt like I could, as the chapters seemed to be their own little story/world (I didn't lose continuity by stopping).
Hoopla had the audio, but I was unhappy with the presentation. NO table of contents. I was manually trying to bookmark the chapters, just in case I needed to attempt to find a certain spot again. I wonder if that's Hoopla, or the audiobook editing in general (I had noticed the lack of a TOC in Hoopla before, when it was there in Libby and Audible). Ironically as I came to write the review, my LibraryExtension is no longer showing the audio available (nor is it coming up in a Hoopla search). Weird!
Overall - I'm glad I stumbled upon this story, and the basics will stay in my memory. It's not really one I'd recommend. I might keep my physical copy though ...
This was divided into the 13 1/2 lives as the book chapters, although when you finish up chapter 7 (over halfway to 13 1/2) you're only 32% of the way through the book. The final "lives" get more time ...
Based on the cartoon cover, the big blue bear, the fantasy feel and comparison to Shel Silverstein, I was thinking that despite the heft (almost 700 pages) that this might be middle-grade. GR and SG do have it listed as YA, but, well as BlueBear himself says, he has quite the vocabulary! Lots of less common words, mixing in some that I notice here too ... nadir, arcane, deign, swathed, caromed, preternatural, ablutions, detritus, sibilance, vituperating, assignation, hirsute, apogee ... lots more too that I didn't mark as I was listening, not as easy to stop and highlight).
This really WAS completely divided into his lives/adventures - most completely unrelated.
1. My Life as a MiniPirate
2. My Life with the Hobgoblins
3. My Life on the Run
4. My Life on Gourmet Island
5. My Life as a Navigator
6. My Life in the Gloomberg Mountains
7. My Life in the Great Forest
8. My Life in the Dimensional Hiatus
9. My Life in the Demerana Desert
10. My Life in Tornado City
11. My Life in the Bollog's Head
12. My Life in Atlantis
13. My Life Aboard the SS Moloch
13 1/2 ... My Half-Life at Peace
Even though it isn't until Ch6 when Bear enrolls in Professor Nightingale’s Nocturnal Academy, from the first chapter, we get little 'inserts' of information on every topic imaginable From the ‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’ by Professor Abdullah Nightingale ... with that full introduction every time. It gets a little repetitive, even though the narrator switches up inflections to try to keep it interesting/entertaining.
Honestly - I don't know if I felt the need to shift things up (taking a break from this and reading something else in-between) or if I just felt like I could, as the chapters seemed to be their own little story/world (I didn't lose continuity by stopping).
Hoopla had the audio, but I was unhappy with the presentation. NO table of contents. I was manually trying to bookmark the chapters, just in case I needed to attempt to find a certain spot again. I wonder if that's Hoopla, or the audiobook editing in general (I had noticed the lack of a TOC in Hoopla before, when it was there in Libby and Audible). Ironically as I came to write the review, my LibraryExtension is no longer showing the audio available (nor is it coming up in a Hoopla search). Weird!
Overall - I'm glad I stumbled upon this story, and the basics will stay in my memory. It's not really one I'd recommend. I might keep my physical copy though ...