The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo

From the book flap:

This is the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in darkness but covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl with a simple, impossible wish. These characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and ultimately, into each other's lives. And what happens then? Reader, it is your destiny to find out.

I was prepared to love The Tale of Despereaux. I finally got around to picking it up because the author, Kate DiCamillo is going to be at the National Book Festival in September but I was looking forward to it because I saw a little blurb about the book on tv once right before the movie came out and it sounded so wonderful.

And then, for me, the book fell totally flat.

It felt a lot like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, actually. Sparse, with two-dimensional characters that left me bored and just chugging through to get to the end. Except I felt like the ending of TBitSP redeemed it a bit while the ending to The Tale of Despereaux just felt really abrupt and unsatisfying.

Plus, the book would be all charming and then there would be random bits of darkness and violence. I don't mind dark fairy tales, but this one felt a little uneven and I wasn't expecting it at all. Most dark fairy tales thoroughly acknowledge they're dark, but this one still sort of tries to pass itself off as a shiny happily-ever-after type story, even when the ending isn't actually all that happy.

The illustrations were gorgeous though.

I'd still like to see the movie...maybe it will play out better for me on screen than on the page.