In a time of helicopter parents who want to protect their kids from feeling hurt at any cost, this book is a reminder of how much we can learn and be fueled by failure.

Fantastic Failures is all about people who have changed the world - but not without falling down first. Some of the names that you will probably recognize that are included in this book include - Harry Potter author JK Rowling, Media superstar Oprah, movie director Steven Speilberg, NASA brain Katherine Johnson... The moral of the story is, be persistent and keep trying. Fall down 7 times, stand up 8. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Just think of all the things we would not have if the people in this book gave up after their first attempt didn't go as they had planned for it to!


I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

I picked up FANTASTIC FAILURES by Luke Reynolds because I thought it would help explain the importance of trying to our daughter who is overly concerned with perfect outcomes. While the writing style appealed to her, including the author’s wit and use of sarcasm, I found those fictional detours to be distracting from the actual non-fiction of the individuals themselves. But she is the audience for this book and responded well to it. She was engaged and understood that the importance of each story was to show how hard work, passion, dedication and self-forgiveness are critical to real success. She is currently reading the Harry Potter series so the JK Rowling section was her favorite. I think that there is a good variety of figures in this book so the appeal can be broad. It involved a lot of research and would be a good reference point for her in the future.

3.5 stars - I do recommend picking up a paper version of this book. There are a lot of illustrations and random text boxes in the Kindle version that are super distracting.

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Good collection of famous and not so famous people and animals who experienced failure on their way to greatness. Reynolds has put together a wide variety of inspirational stories that will inform, entertain, and encourage readers in grades 6 and up. I was a little confused by some of the extra vignettes slipped into many of the bios. They did not seem to be connected to the featured person and were just placed in chapters randomly. Formatting in my digital ARC and the absence of most illustrations and photographs may have contributed to this disjointed flow, so should I decide to purchase this book for either of my libraries, I will want to see the final product first.

Fantastic Failures by Luke Reynolds shares some interesting stories of failures that gives the reader evidence of the importance of a growth mindset. This quote sums it up nicely: “…in order to really learn who we are as people, we need to experience some failure. We need to understand what it’s like to try something and get it wrong – to take a few risks.” Accounts of Albert Einstein, JK Rowling and even Oprah Winfrey demonstrate that failure is not fatal. Readers will love the “100 Questions about Failure and Success (and everything In-between) to Get Your Mind Sparking and Your Heart Pumping” at the end of the book. This would be a great family or class read to engage in conversations about growth mindset, persistence, and the value of failure. Definitely recommend this book!

This book, written by a seventh grade English teacher, is replete with the biographies of those who faced significant challenges in reaching their goals. Just a few of those featured are Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, J. K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey, (the horse) Seabiscuit, Vincent Van Gogh, Christopher Reeve, Albert Einstein and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Each entry starts with a fantasy description of how things went before, more accurately, detailing the setbacks that were faced along the way. The author believes that it is important that young people focus, not on being perfect, but on risk taking and learning. He tells his own story of having been a poor student and then turning things around. The author offers comments to students suggesting coping mechanisms when they face challenges. This book is broad and expansive. It would be an excellent resource for students and school libraries.

A wonderful list of people and their failures, with potted biographies for everyone and what failure meant to them. Unfortunately it's ruined by a cod self-help screed, bashing it into you that success comes after failure and seldom before, and other platitudes, in mind-numbing doses. Shame then, as this book would not have been a failure without them. Actually, scratch that – the very make-up of it doesn't work. Every chapter begins with a fantasy variant of the failure's story, which I ditched bothering with after the first instance – clearly that failed, then – and every single quote in the main text also gets a box-out to pad things out and make us all think we're seeing double. The text wrings empathy out of us like it's a life-or-death matter – 'ooh, imagine you in a similar position failing, what would you have done?!' I gave up with it all when it patently lied to me, about Seabiscuit – saying nobody at a claimer's race wanted to buy it – except, as it admits two paragraphs further on, someone did. A sorrowfully missed opportunity.