All the reviews said The Doom Machine was a great read. It came highly recommended from our school librarian. But … eh … I couldn’t finish it. I don’t know if it was me or the book, but I could not get my mind past Mark Teague’s writing. While I have loved his work in picture books (The Dear Mrs. LaRue books are a riot) and find him to be funny and imaginative as a storyteller, The Doom Machine could not hold my interest, even with the neat drawings and sci-fi element. And I kept with it for almost 120 pages, thinking: this is bound to change for the better at any moment.
It didn’t. The writing felt choppy, and lacked a certain flow. It was as if he were trying to fit his picture book writing style into a novel format. That doesn’t work. (Which, if you think about it, is an interesting ideas — that the genre influences the writing, and how does a master of one genre make the switch?)
I put the book down and stuffed it into the pile of books for my classroom. Now, as I write that, I wonder if someone will say, You don’t like it but you’re going to put it in front of your students? Good question! Yes. I’m not the arbiter of everything that’s good (again, most reviewers of the book gave it high marks), and I bet someone will like this story of a boy and girl on an alien spaceship trying to save the world.
It just won’t be me.
Peace (in the doom of the book),
Kevin