"Word of Mouse" is like a children's version of "Miss Frisby and the Rats of NIMH." It's protagonist, a mouse named Isaiah, escapes from a lab that does tests on animals, but those same tests have made him extremely intelligent, even to the point of being able to speak and read English. He makes friends with other mice and one human girl who he has to communicate with by jumping around on a laptop keyboard. Very cute.
Most of the book has to do with him trying to survive outside of the lab but with the constant sadness that he left his entire family in such a terrible situation. The story picks up when he concocts a plan to rescue his family from the lab.
Now, you may be wondering if this book makes lab scientists look like vicious, evil animal torturers... and yes. It does. It absolutely does to a cartoonish degree. I'm not joking. These scientists absolutely love torturing animals and are always fearful that the ASPCA is going to find out what they're doing. Yeah, I didn't really care for this plot point. It felt very manufactured.
To be honest, I found much of the last quarter of the book to be somewhat surreal. The authors went through a lot of trouble to factor so many things in for the mice to deal with to make it seem realistic in the way that they interact with the human world. I did a similar thing back when I wrote "God and the Squirrels," where I had a team of squirrels attempting to "pilot" a car. But I was never trying to push any weird lab animal abuse conspiracies at anybody.
Like my "God and the Squirrels," this book has a lot of religious stuff in it as well, but mostly towards the end. A lot of the agendas get dropped near the end so you have plenty of time to fall in love with the characters up to that point. Yeah, it kind of sucks, I know. I'm not saying religion in books are bad, but the Christianity represented in this one was more progressive in nature. It had me scratching my head a little.
You need to understand something. I don't hate this book. It plays out like a children's movie almost to the letter. It's very entertaining, cute, and fun. It just ends on an unrealistic and surreal note. It's not a bad ending. You just have to accept it for what it is. And what it is... is just not as good as what came before it. This book gets a solid 75%. That's right. This book is 75% good. And the ending doesn't kill it; it just comes across as a bit forced and stupid.
But do I recommend it? Well, I do, but I don't think you should if the stuff at the end is going to bother you. It is wildly entertaining and well-written. All the characters are very interesting... except for the evil lab scientist. It's a mixed bag. Read at your own risk. (But let's be honest... "God and the Squirrels" is probably a better book.)
This blog was written on January 28, 2025.
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I read the novel Dune and give a 75% for similar reasons. Like WORD OF MOUSE it exaggerated a point of message, making the bias of the author painfully obvious. The story was still interesting and immersive, however. It had many good ideas and used them well.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I still enjoyed most of it.
DeleteAn obvious agenda can ruin the enjoyment of a work. No matter how likable the characters are, the propaganda just might overshadow them. This leaves one longing for what might have been.
ReplyDelete