I think this book is great for younger kids, but as a 17, nearly 18 year old, it felt very juvenile. I would like to read more by Eoin Colfer at some point, and I think the way he wrote Tony Stark is very good. Unfortunately, everything else was just okay in my opinion. Nothing really wowed me. ( )

The Gauntlet is a new young adult novel featuring Tony Stark and Iron Man. Tony is off to speak to environmental leaders from all over the world. He orders his AI companion, Friday to take him and his Iron Man suit to his yacht where his decoy, known as Prototony, is making the world think that he is partying with a young supermodel. When Friday starts malfunctioning, Tony reluctantly realizes that his Iron Man suit has been hacked. Friday turns out to be a young Irish girl named Saoirse Tory, a young intern in his company that infiltrated his AI in order to take control of the Iron Man suit. Saoirse is desperate to free her sister from an orphanage where she is being held captive. It isn't long before Tony is taken prisoner by Saoirse and her financial backer, Mr. Chen. When Mr. Chen turns out to be the notorious, Mandarin, Saoirse becomes as much of a victim as Tony is.
Eoin Colfer, writer of the Artemis Fowl series, places Tony Stark in a time frame prior to his association with the Avengers, when he is still questioning his purpose as Iron Man. There is lots of action in the book, but the best scenes are those in which he interacts with Saoirse, whose intellect may actually surpass his own. I would have liked more scenes between these two characters, but the overall story is still a satisfying one.

( )

Plenty of action and big, explosive fights with a minimal body count, a solid Stark characterization, and lots of snarky humor. An easy give to your superhero fans, but it also has a great friendship between Iron Man and a brainy teenage girl, so possibly also a good fit for quirky buddy comedy fans. ( )

I'd never read a book by Eoin Colfer, but I knew of his teenish books, still, I wasn't sure if I'd like it. Although I have really liked the Middle Grade books that Marvel/Disney has started writing for the heroes.

I wondered how he would get the Tony character, right or wrong, etc. And I thought that for the most part he got the characterizations pretty well spot on.

Tony is on his way to an environtmental conference, chatting with his suit's AI Friday when everything goes topsy turvey. He winds up being kidnapped by a teenager and then gets pulled into an evil plot hatched by the Mandarin. It also involves the environmental summitt as well as the Iron Man Suit, just not with Tony in it.

The Mandarin takes on Tony one on one a couple of times and that was sorta interesting, and of course Tony also has to figure out how to save all those who are at the summitt.

In his travels he meets many interesting people while lurching around the UK and they were all awesomely and uniquely written.

The story even had some twists and turns that I didn't see coming. And there were interesting connections with both comics and the movies, although it also didn't how to just one of the Universes. It was its own Universe, which was cool.

It was a pretty awesome YAish comic novel, and I do hope that maybe Colfer will do another book in the Marvel Universe.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Disney Book Group ( )