Recommendation
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
I enjoyed Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex and took many different messages from it. Self-forgiveness is a great message from this book. Particularly what can happen if you cannot or refuse to forgive yourself for past mistakes. Another message is that sometimes people do the wrong thing for good reasons. I recommend this book with five stars. For more information about how this book touches on self-forgiveness and doing the wrong thing for good reasons please see my thoughts below.
Reading Level
5-9th grade
Review for Parents
This book is clean language-wise and there is no sexual content. There are excellent messages that can be taken from this book a few of which are mentioned in the recommendation above and a few more are mentioned in My Thoughts on Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex section below.
Plotline: Spoiler Free
Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex begins with a meeting between Artemis and many of his fairy friends. Artemis is not himself. He’s been suffering from guilt for all his past wrongs. This guilt manifests in a psychosis known to the fairies as Atlantis Complex.
Artemis is pitching his idea to use fairy technology to save the icecaps from melting. During the demonstration of this technology, an unexpected fairy space probe shows up and destroys everything in its path on its way down to Atlantis.
Holly, Foaly, and Artemis survive but Artemis, while dealing with his psychosis, becomes stuck in his mind, and a split personality comes to the forefront.
Orion, the second personality, Holly, and Foaly follow the space probe using an old escape pod from the Space probe itself.
As they follow the space probe down to the bottom of the ocean, the escape pod loses its seal, and they start running out of air. Holly decides to go back to the surface instead of dying under the water following the space probe.
Meanwhile, in the Atlantis prison, Turnball Root’s escape plan is progressing perfectly. With the help of a disgruntled LEP officer, he was able to use his computer to take control of the space probe and send it on a course to Atlantis but him out.
When the space probe reaches Atlantis Turnball breaks himself and a few of his cronies out. Turnball is set on getting revenge on Holly and the rest of the LEP for putting him in jail. His main goal, however, is to kidnap number 1, the demon warlock, and use his magic to make his wife young again.
Holly, Artemis, and Foaly are floating in the ocean trying to work out a plan when Butler, Juliet, and Mulch Diggums show up and rescue them. They investigate who could be behind the space probe.
During their investigation, Turnball Root manages to capture them with the plan of using Holly and Artemis specifically to lure number 1 into his clutches. Turnball uses special runes to take control of both Artemis and Holly.
It’s up to Artemis once again to come up with a plan to save them all.
My Thoughts on Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex
As I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but think about the importance of forgiving yourself for past mistakes. Forgiveness of oneself is a clear message in this book as Artemis not being able to forgive himself is the cause of his Atlantis Complex. Self-forgiveness is an essential part of life because all of us make mistakes and many of us have a hard time forgiving ourselves for those mistakes.
I also enjoyed Artemis’ other personality, Orion. I thought that his proclamations of love for Holly throughout the book brought great comedic relief to the book. Not only that, it also made me think that Artemis has feelings for Holly which is a fun aspect of the book.
Another theme I found was trust. Because of Artemis’ Atlantis complex, he didn’t trust anybody. He was even shutting Butler out. It’s important to trust those closest to you and it was hard to read Butler’s reaction to not being trusted. It was particularly hard to read because Butler is by far Artemis’ biggest ally and friend. Artemis should never have doubted Butler’s loyalty for a second.
The last thing that I want to touch on is Turnball Root. Turnball is a criminal who betrayed LEP. He was responsible for running all the underground criminal activity in Haven and his brother Commander Julius Root, with Holly’s help, took him into custody. His motives for awful behavior, and it was abhorrent, were born from love or at least that’s what the book would have you believe.
It seems like all Turnball is trying to do is be with his wife. He breaks out of jail to see her, and he tries to kidnap number 1 to make her young again so he can be with her longer. It’s hard to see him as a bad guy at the end of the book when his motives are uncovered. Or at least it would be if he hadn’t murdered a bunch of LEP officers at the beginning of the book for no other reason than revenge.
I really like this book because it brings up philosophical questions about guilt, revenge, and forgiveness. I think it’s important to note, that just because something is done in the name of love, that doesn’t make it necessarily right. I think that is another excellent message to take from this book.
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