Review: Monstrous Regiment

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my second time reading the book. I lowered the rating from 5 to 4 stars mostly because 5 stars is “it was amazing” and 4 stars is “really liked it” so that’s a more honest assessment.

This is a book that I remembered fondly and, thankfully, the re-read did not reveal that the book had been visited by the Suck Fairy. In fact, I found it a bit more clever than I remembered. I still remembered the big twist - it’s a bit too big to forget, but I had forgotten how it was revealed.

Overall this book is a little bit Mulan (and a bunch of little-known Europeans as I learned in a history class in undergrad) and a little bit Joan of Arc. Samuel Grimes makes a cameo and Pratchett really makes use of every sentence of his on the page.

This is one of the Discworld books that can be read on its own as long as you know that The Clacks if the Discworld version of the telegraph/internet, that Discworld is populated by Tolkien creatures/Horror novel creatures, and that magic is real (even if it just plays a tiny part in this book. Extra easter eggs if you know who William de Worde and Sam Grimes are, but unnecessary to enjoy the plot.

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