When you first approach this book, with its bright colours and cute, simplistic characters, your first thought could easily be that Louis is a children's book, and to a certain extent it would be suitable for children. On the other hand, reading as an adult, I picked up on various undertones that children probably wouldn't notice in the work.
As an adult, I found it a kind of claustrophobic reading experience. There is almost a feeling of paranoia and a dark intensity that, to be honest, I found a little disturbing and disorienting.
To me, this book creates a feeling of a dystopian future, where you are constantly observed and checked for signs of deviance and where the powers that be keep their citizens under very strict control. It's almost as if this was 1984 adapted for a kiddie audience.
Additionally, there are moments in here that seem very surreal and strange and this adds a little to the underlying tension you feel reading this.
Although the tension is broken by the many moments of humour and the fact that Louis himself is a very charming character, you never quite escape the feeling of a kind of dark malevolent and unseen forces that lie in wait beneath the surface.
I've got to point out that this means nothing to the question of whether this is suitable for children to read because I really think that a child reading this book would see and feel different things to the things that I as an adult feel when reading this.
The way that this book could mean different things to different audiences is part of the thing that makes Louis: Red Letter Day so interesting, really. No 2 people would get the same reading experience or derive the same meanings that I got from this and it is this that shows us the sheer genius of the way Metaphrog manipulates their audience and its expectations.
Louis: Red Letter Day is an innovative, unique, surreal, amusing and thoroughly brilliant book and I don't think I can fault it on any level.
Louis: Red Letter Day is available in book form and costs £9.99 in the UK and $15.95 in the US. All the Louis books are available on Amazon. You can find more information about the character and the books from www.metaphrog.com.
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