In “Kill the Farm Boy” by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne, a group of unlikely individuals comes together under very strange circumstances. Together, they oddly enough sorta succeeded in their grand adventure together.

This novel is the lovechild of Shrek, The Princess Bride, and Monty Python and that child goes on a crazy Dungeons and Dragon adventure.

Ms. Dawson and Mr. Hearne put the reader in a magical fantasy world filled with the usual archetypes and take it to an extreme. The party is mainly composed of women with different strengths and weaknesses. The Chosen One is not who you’d expect and hates being the chosen one.

Throughout the novel, I found myself laughing loudly for every single character is endearing with brilliant faults and powers that you would think would be useful for any situation — like fear of chickens and powers to make “almost crackers”.

The authors give everything a rather odd and refreshing modern twist — trolls act like both the myth and the modern day internet trolls, and women call out the misogynist tropes of a medieval fantasy world.

While this cleverly written adventure is refreshing, the prose sometimes seems to drag on as the character monologues extend farther than they need to. While this story is driven by both plot and its characters, sometimes they hold up the progression of the story in an unassuming fashion.

A Rogue.

A Bard.

A Warrior.

A Wizard.

A Goat.

A Steve.

A Quest.

A story you wouldn’t expect to teach you lessons about life, death, love, and adventure after you’re done laughing out loud.

Personal Rating: 4.5/5
Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne
Pub Date: July 17, 2018
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 9781524797744