📕 Title: Trollhunters
✏️ Author: Guillermo del Toro & Daniel Kraus
📖 Genre: YA Fantasy
⭐ Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
 
BOOK BLURB

“Jim Sturges is your typical teen in suburban San Bernardino-one with an embarrassingly overprotective dad, a best friend named “Tubby” who shares his hatred of all things torturous (like gym class), and a crush on a girl who doesn’t know he exists. But everything changes for Jim when a 45-year old mystery resurfaces, threatening the lives of everyone in his seemingly sleepy town. Soon Jim has to team up with a band of unlikely (and some un-human) heroes to battle the monsters he never knew existed.”

REVIEW

This review is coming from my perspective as a fan of the Netflix animated series. (I’ll refer to it as “the show” throughout my review.) It’s difficult to fairly compare the two because the plots differ significantly and the main characters feel like entirely different people, but I’m glad the show evolved this story into something far greater.

Using a first person POV, the story is told entirely from Jim’s perspective which is unfortunately dull at times. I didn’t particularly love Jim, who tried to sneak away when his “best friend” was being terrorized by bullies. The difference between how he worships Claire verses how he constantly disparages Toby really showed Jim’s character and I wasn’t a fan. There is character growth, but he definitely fell short compared to the show Jim.

Toby was done a huge disservice in this novel. There was such a negative focus on him being fat (like, his nickname is “Tubs”? Really??) and having braces. I felt myself constantly cringing at how he was described because it honestly felt cruel at times, especially since Jim (his supposed best and only friend) is the person making these unkind observations. The show is far kinder to his character and demonstrates a healthier, stronger friendship between the boys.

Claire is essentially the “not like other girls” love interest for Jim, and while she was fine as a character she didn’t get a ton of page time. (I did think it was cute that book Claire is taller than Jim though.) In the show she is an important part of the team and plot, while this story served more as an introduction to her character. I suspect that if there were sequels she would have become a main supporting character like Toby, but that didn’t happen in this one.

The plot was okay. The boys often deal with bullies, especially at the beginning of the book. The strongest scenes involved the trolls, and although there are some horror filled scenes it was well balanced by the humorous moments. It was cool that ARRRGH!!! was female in this book. However, the action scenes are sometimes bogged down by Jim’s narrative.

The character of Jack is perhaps the most notable difference from the show, and I can see how the tragedy of his story arc later became integrated into show Jim’s character. Jack’s tragic background was another strong element of this book, as it demonstrated the real stakes that Jim and his community face.

This book doesn’t offer much for fans of the show, aside from demonstrating how significantly the story changed from book to screen. I loved the beautiful color illustrations, but otherwise I wouldn’t recommend this book for fans of the show. And for readers who aren’t familiar with this franchise—this is one of those cases where the show is significantly better than the book.