A new student review of The Illuminated Forest by Edwin Fontánez

jotaf posted a new student review of The Illuminated Forest by Edwin Fontánez. See the full review.

I thought The Illuminated Forest was a great book about coping with death and growing up.  I liked that the author, Edwin Fontánez made the characters fairly easy to connect with.  Another part I both liked and disliked was that part of the book was written from the perspective of the stray cat; it  put part of the book in a new and interesting perspective, but it was also sometimes difficult to understand because of the awkward use of language (in its head) by the cat.  A part in the book that I thought was really funny was when the owner of the small theatre in Palo Verde played The Graduate, but the owner did not read the description of the movie.  Being ignorant of the inappropriateness of the movie, she advertised it as, "An inspiration for kids to graduate!"  Her advertisement got lots of families with kids to come see the movie.  The next day all of the parents of the families that saw the movie were pounding on her door for what she accidentally did.  

One thing I did not like about the book, though, was that at the beginning it jumped quite a bit, starting with Mateo being fifteen, then Mateo being twelve, and then it jumped to a six year old girl, and after that, to an Indian tribe that used to live in Palo Verde.  Finally, though, it settled on twelve year old Mateo.  The other thing I disliked about this book was that it got a little dull at parts of the book and it took a little while for the book to get going again.  I think this book would be most enjoyed by anyone ages twelve through sixteen.