What is it that makes YOU want to read a book? Richard Ayoade’s children’s debut gives you all the answers in a way that’s silly, funny, and thoroughly beguiling.

Have you ever thought about how it feels to be a book? To be left under a whiffy pant pile or shelved, forever collecting dust? To have your pages bent backwards or your spine BROKEN? What if you don’t have a sparkly unicorn or dragon adorning your cover – who will pick you out of the bookshop then? This is the story of the sadly neglected Book That No One Wanted To Read – can its destiny change when it finally meets the right reader? Spoiler alert: yes.

This is the first children’s novel from TV personality Richard Ayoade and contains his dry, straight-talking sense of humour throughout. The book features a young girl visiting her local library and coming across a book on the top shelf of a bookcase that talks to her telepathically. The story is told from Books POV.

The beginning of the tale is all about how the book feels and thinks about the contents and the readers. Then we move onto the telepathic section, before ending on what felt like quite a low.

The first and second parts of the story are amusing, intriguing, and contain some fab, funny artwork. However, the ending is lacking for me. Had I not read the epilogue I would have been left scratching my head why the book ended the way it did. The epilogue did give some answers but it felt more like the author hadn’t worked out the ending and so wrote what he did.

I would also like to clarify that Richard Ayoade is wrong when he states that this is the first book written by a book. It’s not, I reviewed one in 2016 called My Name is Book by John Agard, funny enough published by the same publishers – surely they would have remembered and told him!!!

The length of the book is just right for middle-graders and the writing was aimed at the right level, especially the humour. I can see children laughing along with Book and his tales.

Overall, The Book That No One Wanted to Read is a story that will give some light relief to the reader and have them giggling now and again. However, I think the execution of the plot needed more work and the ending definitely needed something more.

Richard Ellef Ayoade is a British comedian, film director, screenwriter, television presenter, actor, and author best known for his role as the socially awkward IT technician Maurice Moss in Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd, for which he won the 2014 BAFTA for Best Male Comedy Performance.