Audiobook Review – Pan’s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun by Guillermo del Toro, Cornelia Funke, Narrated by Thom Rivera (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Length: 6 hours and 23 minutes
Publisher:‎ HarperAudio
Release Date: July 02, 2019
ASIN: B07N7MD644
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Oscar winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro and bestselling author Cornelia Funke have come together to transform del Toro’s hit movie Pan’s Labyrinth into an epic and dark fantasy novel for listeners of all ages, with enchanting short stories that flesh out the folklore of this fascinating world.

This spellbinding tale takes listeners to a sinister, magical, and war-torn world filled with richly drawn characters like trickster fauns, murderous soldiers, child-eating monsters, courageous rebels, and a long-lost princess hoping to be reunited with her family.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on audiobook from my library.

Thoughts: I wasn’t a huge fan of this and struggled to finish it. I listened to this on audiobook which was part of my issue; it was hard to tell when we were leaving the main story and jumping into a side fairy tale. It came off as very wandering and a bit hard to follow.

The story jumps between the story of Ophelia, a sad young girl whose father has died and whose mother has decided to marry an evil commander, and other random fairy tales. Ophelia’s mother is pregnant with the commander’s child. Ophelia gets lured into performing some crazy tasks to prove to a fawn that she is a lost princess. In between these tasks we follow the day to day drudgery of Ophelia’s existence and also hear fairy tale like stories of the history and past of the world (both imaginary and real).

This was okay. I liked the concept. This was written after the Pan’s Labyrinth movie was released and does a good job of filling in some of the background that was missing in the movie. I really enjoyed the fairy tale like feel to portions of the story. Unfortunately, I had a hard time following the story at times. We jump from Ophelia’s story, to some tale from the past, to the rebel soldiers, to various people around Ophelia and it was a bit erratic. I think listening to this on audiobook contributed to my confusion because the transitions weren’t very clear.

The writing was okay. I didn’t really enjoy the characters all that much, you just bounce around too much to engage with them. The story is dreary and dark and depressing. Description is lacking throughout, so it’s hard to picture places and settings. This is one I probably could have skipped.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this was okay but not great. The story felt fractured and it was hard to follow as it jumped between Ophelia, past tales, and other characters. It was fairly depressing and just not that interesting. I would have preferred to be listening to something else. This is a book I was really looking forward to so I pushed through but it wasn’t really my thing and I would recommend skipping it.