Book Review: The Magical Collar by Thomas van Grinsven, Rutger Vink, Sander Meij (The Adventures of Rutger, Thomas and Paco #1)

 

  Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads De avonturen van Rutger, Thomas en Paco #1: De magische halsband.

I've seen this one everywhere in bookstores in the Netherlands recently, so why not give it a look? Spoilers ahead.

One day, dog owners Thomas and Rutger are given a package containing a few items for their dog Paco, including a fancy collar. However, Paco starts to act strange after being given the collar, to the point she can now talk and eventually vanishes. Her owners go looking for her and discover a villainous plot involving more dogs who went missing than just Paco.

It's a children's book and I get that those are often simpler, but this one was just...not that good. It has some okay elements such as fun characters and neat illustrations, and I'm of course glad to see more LGBT+ representation in books, but overall this book just feels...average.

A very basic plot with not a lot of depth, the sentence structures are sometimes a bit awkward and overall this just feels like a very average kid book with nothing that really sets it apart. The villain is also incredibly lame and weak and defeated too easily. Like all this buildup and a full journey to find Paco and this is the payoff?

The only aspect regarding the villain I liked is that he has a childhood trauma resulting in a hatred of dogs, and with the help of Paco he gets over this trauma. But like...that wholesomeness aside, he's just so uninteresting and boring.

I probably won't be picking up the second book in this series. I don't mind reading books for children as they can be very fun and creative and light reads, but this one was just too bare bones and basic story-wise. That said, it's not really actively bad, either. Just...average.

Also, just to mention this: the characters in this book are based on the real Thomas, Rutger and their dog Paco, who are popular Dutch vloggers. I have never watched a single one of their videos, so that doesn't play into my enjoyment of the book whatsoever. I didn't even know they were vloggers before I picked up the book, to be honest.

Rating: 2/5