“… I would put ‘Irving Wishbutton and the Questing Academy’ up against any modern teen coming of age series including ‘Harry Potter’… ” Welcome to the Questing Academy, a school devoted to helping book characters learn their roles. They attend classes while their authors finish their stories, only graduating upon publication. With a student body made up of heroes, villains, support … support characters, and folks who are just plain narrative window dressing, there’s conflict galore.
Irving Wishbutton arrives at the Questing Academy incomplete. His author hasn’t fully described him, which leaves parts of him fuzzy and indistinct. Branded a smudge, he is treated like a second-class citizen. Trouble dogs Irving at every turn. He runs afoul of Sir Gared, a villain who’s convinced he’s destined to be a hero. Lord Raggleswamp and Dean Harmstrike also seem to have it in for him. Plus, far too many of the professors are villains. Something is amiss at the academy and Irving, willing or not, must unearth the school’s dark secrets.
Aided by Roon, an undead detective whose fickle author can’t decide what undead type she truly is, and Sarya, a spunky fairy that sees Irving quite clearly for what he is even though he’s a lowly smudge, he embarks on a dangerous quest, one not written by his author.
The Questing Academy is volume one in a four-book saga that tells a coming-of-age metafiction story for the ages.
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I loved Irving Wishbutton so much I read the entire series. Good writing, fun characters, imaginative and entertaining–everything you want in a book that you want to read just for fun.
It’s very original with two parallel plots: one of the author writing the book, and one of the characters he creates learning how to be characters with their own plots.
The premise is interesting being written from the perspective of a character in a novel and the character’s author. It’s a fun read and thoroughly entertaining. I can’t wait to follow Irving’s future exploits
I enjoyed this book. I really liked the way it followed both writer and character. The story was well written and the characters were dimensional.
There was no sex, and I don’t remember any bad language. There was some violence, but it was not graphic. The one problem for me was that it was a major cliffhanger. It got me all involved with the plot and the characters, then just at the point where I could finally define the problem the characters were facing……it quit. I was having Alexa read while I crocheted. I was so surprised when it ended that I had to bring up the book and see if there wasn’t more that Alexa had somehow missed.
So I would recommend this book for adults, I would warn you not to start it if you don’t want to follow the series. I don’t think this is a book for young children because I don’t think they’d really understand it, and there is violence. I would recommend it for older children.
Compelling, and yet …
This story is about a story being written. Chapters alternate between (1) an author’s progress, from first thoughts to actual chapter writing and re-writing, and (2) the main character’s discovery of himself and his story’s plot (as previously explained in the author’s chapter), while managing adventures during his residence at a school for characters of not-yet-if-ever-published stories. The premise is intriguing… the execution seems shallow and contrived … and yet it is a very compelling read.
Unfortunately, I did not know that this was the first book of a series. By “series” I don’t mean several independent stories about the same character – I mean that this is one segment of a long story. This book was interesting enough to keep me reading the length of a book – not sure I want to continue for the length of how-many-books.
Would have liked it more if it was not a series. A very interesting plot for a single book.
Different strange viewpoints
Quite original and well written. In the post Potter world, we see entirely too many of the same recycled ideas. Irving is new, fresh and fun. Highly recommended.