The Iron Man by Ted Hughes - Book REVIEW

The Iron Man by Ted Hughes is a children’s story. I’m not going to beat around the bush; my last book review was Metro 2034, a grim post-apocalyptic novel with many darker scenes and now I am reviewing a children’s book. Next week I will have a more mature book to review, but for now, I will give you my thoughts on a book that will take 30 minutes to read.

Let’s begin!​

Pin for Later!

Why am I reviewing this?

If I was to sum up the story and its characters I would end up with a greater word count than the book itself. So, let me just explain why I am reviewing this book and who I recommend it to.

Growing up, one of my favorite movies was The Iron Giant. Those of you familiar with it understand that it has a fantastic art style, amusing characters, a gripping plot, and an impactful ending. It was a movie that appeared so unassuming, but like most animated movies at that time, it had more quality in its first twenty minutes than most movies showing in theaters today.

I learned recently that the movie was based on a book called The Iron Man. You can guess why they renamed it to The Iron Giant for the movie release. It is a story about a giant robot, his misadventures, and how he saved the world. The movie took a lot of the story and adapted it into something that appealed to a more general audience.

Reading it, I recognize the many scenes from the movie, which I suppose is more than I could have hoped for. Well, that and maybe a book that was closer to 300 pages instead of 50.
​

Writing Style

It’s a children’s book, it’s style is exactly what you expect.

The writing style is amusing. It uses a lot of poetry techniques, but more than anything, it is a simple story. If you have 30 minutes, you can breeze through the story. If you are in a rush, you can finish it with your morning cup of coffee.
​

My Thoughts

Wow, already my final thoughts.

Okay, if you haven’t seen The Iron Giant or read The Iron Man, I would recommend you watch The Iron Giant. If you have seen The Iron Giant and would like to say “hey, I read the book that the movie is based on and it was okay”,  then I recommend giving The Iron Man a glance. A ‘glance’ is just enough time to read the book twice.

If I sound disappointed with the length of the book, it’s because I am. Before it ended up in my hands, I believed it would be a lot closer to the movie in plot and style, with a bit more for me to enjoy; a full novel.

Oh, well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I hope you enjoyed this short, disappointing, and rather informal book review.

As always,

Good day, goodnight and happy reading.
​