Monday 19 January 2015

Review - Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green

93008Genre: classics, adventure, historical fiction
Rating: 3,5/5
Pages: 279
Goodreads

Summary from Goodreads
Robin Hood is champion of the poor and oppressed against the cruel power of Prince John and the brutal Sheriff of Nottingham. He takes refuge with his Merrie Men in the vast Sherwood Forest, emerging time and again to outwit his enemies with daring and panache. This classic version brings sense and clarity as well as excitement to the varied myths, ballads and legends about Robin's adventures.

My thoughts
Every chapter was a short adventure on it's own. It was definitely enjoyable to read but not extremely exciting. I was mostly interested to read on because of its influence in literature. So many stories are based on the stories of Robin Hood and so many references are made to them.
Because every chapter was pretty much a short adventure on its own it was easy to read only one chapter at a time and it was not one of those books I couldn't put down because I needed to know what happened next.
Although some of the characters in the book seem to be entirely bad persons, there are no characters that are entirely good. I was surprised at how often I thought Robin made a wrong decision. I liked Robin Hood a little less then I thought I would. He had a very agressive way of approaching people, so it was no wonder some of those people reacted really angry. Most of his encounters with others started out with a fight with sticks. Eventhough it was funny in the beginning I honestly got a little bored with it over time and also a lot of the stories just seemed very much like stories I read earlier in the book.
The chapters on their own contained a lot of action, but the overarching plotline progressed quite slowly. For the most part of the book Robin was just getting people to join his band of outcasts. Although this book wasn't quite what I was expecting it was sometimes quite funny and it was still an enjoyable read.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds good. I know the story of Robin Hood, but never actually read it. And since I am watching Once Upon A Tim, I've got a whole different idea of Robin Hood, hehe. (Since the tv show never really follows the real stories of the characters.) Once upon I time, I'll read this book. But for now, my list is just too long. *sigh*

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    1. I also had a quite different picture of Robin Hood before I read the book. It wasn't the most exciting read ever, but interesting because of it's importance for other stories and tv shows as well :)

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  2. These sound like short adventures, but like there were plenty of them as well! Robin Hood has always been one of my favourite classic tales, and I even watched the BBC show based on it through my childhood. I don't know why I haven't read it yet!

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