I received a free copy of Sir Thomas the Hesitant from the author, this does not affect my review, all opinions are my own. If you scroll down you can also get a free copy on Liam Perrin’s website.
Witty and heartwarming
This book feels like a warm hug from a dear friend. It left me feeling so good. Take on the world, start a rebellion, do anything you set your mind to good. Anyone in need of a pick me up, read this book now. My only real complaint is that there aren’t 10 more volumes to follow up.
It’s classic tale of a young man setting off on a great quest to prove his worth and save his better-at-everything-brother. Except he’s not really all that sure going is such a good idea, and can’t really figure out how to go about his quest, which is really just an average sized quest, when you think of it. He’s a knight without much shiny armor at all, that gets by more due to his kind nature and good friends than strength.
My favorite parts:
The Characters : Liam Perrin’s characters are lovely, colorful and sweet. In a book centered around Less Valued Knights, my favorite was a less important character, Sir Thomas’ Grandma, who kept nodding off whenever anything was happening, but was very clever in between her nap, she reminded me of Nanny Og.
As Thomas sets out he’s helped, as would only be appropriate in any fairy tale, by a mysterious wizard and a magical creature. The wizard is a recovering evil wizard turned healer, and the magical creature is a giantess with huge self esteem issues. He also get a powerful magic sword, that stinks, impressively so. In Camelot he makes friends with Sir Phillip the Disadvantaged, a fellow young Less Valued Knight, who is a loyal and supportive a friend as anyone could dream of.
Though Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table are rather unimportant in this story, I found them all fun, and I liked that we saw a more human side to them as well.
The Humor : There’s all kinds of funny in this book. The language is witty and great to read, the names and the reasons behind them made me giggle, I will be naming a future a cat after Sir Cuddlington. All the sweet little stories like the shrinking giantess and the evil wizard with a passion for baking delicious biscuits. And the ridiculous parts, like the tournament held at Camelot to assign each new knight to their appropriate table, which involves little actual combat and lot of throwing around bags of flour and trying to break eggs on people’s heads.
The Story was a lot more elaborate than I’d expected in 260 pages, and with plenty of twists and turns to keep it all interesting. There are two main ideas that pop up a lot: “I don’t think this is a good idee” quickly followed by “Nonsense, you’ll be fine” and the idea that you can only be what you imagine yourself to be. The first funny, the second what made the book so endearing to me. I’m weary of giving out spoilers, but there’s adventure, a lovely lady with a good head on her shoulders that’s by no means a damsel in distress, a dastardly plot by an evil Baron, and unlikely hope in the darkest of times.
We got to see the less glamarous side of Camelot, which come to think of it must have made up most of the city. Sir Tuttle the Authorized’s rules for the LVK are really just good sense rules that we could abide, and Thomas only gets into trouble when he forgets about them.
I only wonder how long to wait until I can re-read this.