Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Taking the Blame
by Louie Stowell

4 out of 5 stars

Loki has been banished from Asgard. Odin has given Loki the form of an 11-year-old human, and sent Thor, Heimdall, and Hyrrokkin (also in the form of humans) to keep an eye on him. Loki must learn to be good and keep a record of his good or bad deeds in a magical journal. In this second book of the series, Loki is trying to make some new friends, but he goes about it in all the wrong ways.

This is such a funny series! I liked all the cartoony comic illustrations on each page. Sometimes the text of the story changes to a comic strip for one or two pages, then back to the regular text again. The narrative is told from Loki’s perspective as he is writing about his quest in the magic diary that gives him points for being good. I thought this was a wonderfully effective story-telling technique!

The characters of Thor, Heimdall, and Hyrrokkin were really hilarious! They are all trying to adjust to life as a human family, and they try to do human traditions like birthday parties to fit in with other humans. They want to give Loki a chance to be good, but he keeps using his selfish trickery and that makes it hard to trust him.

All the kids Loki meets at school are pretty typical. Some are bullies, some are nerds; they are just kids. Loki keeps trying to make new friends, but he just bribes or bullies them instead of really connecting with anyone. One of the side characters, Valerie, is Loki’s only friend, and we meet her two moms. She calls one Ma and the other one Mom.

I liked that, although Loki is selfish and mean, he really is trying to do good in this book. He is such a crazy complex character, and this book did a good job reflecting that. I liked that although Loki does bad things and bullies people, this book turns that around into a positive moral message about kindness and selflessness.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.