A Red Herring Without Mustard, by Alan Bradley

I don't know what is going on in Bishop's Lacey. You can't seem to throw a stone in this place without hitting a conspiracy and a dead body. Luckily for everyone, 11-year-old Flavia de Luce is on the case. Well, she's interested in the case. And intrusive in the case. And totally holding back evidence until such time as she is forced to hand it over. Maybe it's not such a lucky thing.

After the interminable opening of The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, I am glad to say that the mystery here gets started within the first sixth of the book, and that the preceding pages are full of Bradley's wonderful writing so it goes by quite quickly. In this go, Flavia sets fire to a gypsy's tent, then attempts to atone by offering the gypsy shelter at her family's estate, then finds an intruder in the house, then finds the gypsy beat over the head and nearly dead. Flavia, delighted by the new mystery, sets off to find the connections between gypsies, thieves, and odd religious sects.

There is also a bit more information about Flavia's dead mum and the slow ruin of her family's estate, and I think quite a bit more insight into the characters of Flavia's sisters and father. I liked this, and I liked the intriguing complexities of this set of mysteries, if not the selective genius of Flavia. It is a lot harder to believe in her 11-year-old-ness in this book and things get awfully convenient for her. But the story is amazingly engrossing and I tore through it in a few hours — though I was able to take a break and have some sleep before getting back to it the next day.

I'm hoping that things calm down around Bishop's Lacey, but if people just want to keep scheming and dying and whatnot, I'm very interested in hearing about it.

Recommendation: For fans of the Flavia and of precocious science-minded child mystery solvers in general. Are there others? I should go find out.

Rating: 8/10
(Global Reading Challenge: North America)

Juniper Berry, by M.P. Kozlowsky

One of the nice things about putting the stickers on library books is that I get to see these books before they make it out to the shelves, and often before regular library-goers even know these books exist. Sometimes I have no idea why the library buys some of these books. At better times, I go "oooooooh shiny want" and pull out my smartphone and put the book on hold so I can get it first!

This is, obviously, one of those books, and what struck me about it first was the cover, which is delightfully stylized. Then I saw the bit about "a tale of terror and temptation," and then I looked at the back which reads only "Be careful what you wish for." I didn't even have to read all the way through the book flap to know I wanted this book to come home with me. Phone! Hold!

Now, the book is not quite as exciting as all that, unfortunately, but I still found it rather adorable and worth a read by the braver children in your life. Juniper Berry is our protagonist of the amusing name, and she's the daughter of some very busy acTOR parents who have been acting increasingly weird of late. She is isolated in her giant house surrounded by forest, but one day she meets a boy called Giles in her backyard who is worried about his own strange-acting parents. He followed them to Juniper's yard, where they disappeared. Juniper and Giles set off to find out what their parents are doing, and it turns out to be a lot more creepy and sinister than they might have imagined.

It's sort of like a Coraline, I'd say. Very sort of, actually, but the mood is similar and I think it is looking for the same audience. In this case, it's the parents who have gone off looking for that elusive greener grass, but Juniper is still the one who has to set everything right because, you know, parents are useless. This book is also a little more obvious with its message of "no seriously just chill and make the best of the life you have because the life you want can kind of suck," but it's still a totally valid message.

Recommendation: For those who like kick-butt kids and creepy demon types.

Rating: 7/10
(A to Z Challenge)

The Shining, by Stephen King

Here's another entry from my TBR Challenge... I saw this movie a while back and thought it was terrible, so I got it into my head that I should read the book because maybe it was better? And then my mother said, "No, really, the book is way better," and then I found the book at the used bookstore for cheap and THEN I totally didn't read it. Hence its addition to the challenge.

So! Now I've read it. Well, okay, I listened to it. And, in fact, it is way better than the movie, or at least what I remember of the movie — the problem with the movie is that it's just so middling that there's nothing to remember. Even after reading the book, my memory of the movie is this: Dude gets a job at a hotel. He goes all Jack Nicholson (see what I did there). He says, "Heeeeere's Johnny!" There is snow and possibly a snowmobile. The end.

The book, on the other hand, goes like this: Dude gets a job at a hotel, the only job he might even remotely get as a recovering alcoholic who, while sober beat the crap out of one of his students. His plan is to lay off the booze (which will be easy with no booze in the hotel), do some writing that will make him awesome and employable, and fix the problems with his family that are not all related to his alcoholism. This is a good plan. His wife and son come with him to take care of this hotel, which is closed for the winter, but the son has "the shining" which makes him a little bit psychic and a little too attuned to the horrors that have taken place in the hotel and that threaten to take place again. Dude is not attuned to these horrors, even as they start seeping into him, ruining his plan a little at a time until he goes all Jack Nicholson. He does not say "Heeeeere's Johnny!" There is lots and lots of snow and one too few snowmobiles.

I didn't exactly like the book, but compared to the movie it is downright wonderful. There's so much more backstory in the book that makes things make sense, and that also makes things more interesting and creepy. Like, the dad was an alcoholic until one night he and his bud ran over a bicycle in the middle of the road that may or may not have had a child on it; they can't find a kid but also can't figure out why there would be a tiny bicycle without a tiny human. And the psychic kid sees a lot more than just REDRUM; he sees what his dad has been and will be capable of and somehow does not pee his pants in fear. And the hotel is dang creepy with its dead people and midnight parties and moving shrubbery and I really don't think I'll be able to look at an animal topiary the same way again. Like, ever.

There's a lot more depth to the novel, is what I'm saying, and it allows King to be more subtle with the creepy and the psychological, which is just the way I like it. It didn't hurt that the audiobook narrator channeled a little Jack Nicholson into his reading — just enough to be fairly terrifying without going all Witches of Eastwick.

Unfortunately, the depth also comes with a lot of long boring bits, which made me not like this book so much. Also, an epilogue. I have been reading an inordinate number of epilogued books lately. Someday I will find a good one. Today is not that day.

Recommendation: Read this if you didn't like or don't remember the movie; it'll make you feel a little better. Not sure I would recommend it on its own strength.

Rating: 7/10
(TBR Challenge)

Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, by John Grisham

I... ugh. I don't usually regret reading books, but this one? This one I do. I have never read a John Grisham novel, so I don't know how this compares, but on its own? It's not good.

So why did I listen to it? Well, I've got five hours of tedious work everyday that is made better by the presence of audiobooks and podcasts. And I was out of podcasts. And audiobooks. And I knew that a friend had read and at least moderately liked this, so I figured it would be okay.

Well, I guess it had its okay moments. Let me think of them. ... Um. ...

Okay, let me take a different tack. Here's why it should have been good: I adore Veronica Mars, which is about a high-schooler that kicks some butt in the private investigation department. Theodore Boone is about a middle-schooler who kicks some butt in the law department, and throughout the book I felt a distinct VM vibe from the story, with fellow students and even adults coming to Theodore with their problems and Theo solving them right quick.

But it turns out that the conceit doesn't actually carry over very well. For starters, I'm pretty sure it's not completely illegal to practice private investigation without a license, and even when it is, the nature of being a PI lends itself to a little rule-breaking. Theo Boone apparently thinks it is totally okay to practice law without a license as long as he doesn't charge for it (very very wrong), and when he's all hacking into computer systems and lying to school staff and whatnot I am like, "ARE YOU SURE IT IS A LAWYER YOU ARE TRYING TO BE." I know lawyers are not all fine upstanding citizens, but the ones in Grisham's novel here at least try to be, so all of this shenaniganizing kills me.

Other things I did not like: the central bit of the story is this big murder trial, and the prosecution has absolutely no case but everyone thinks the guy is guilty anyway but it doesn't matter because reasonable doubt blah blah blah. And a convenient way for the guy to be convicted would be for a surprise witness to show up, like they do on TV. So when several characters informed me that a surprise witness NEVER happens because it is NOT ALLOWED... I figured there was going to be a surprise witness. And (spoiler!) there is, and he blurts his whole story to Theo (OF COURSE), and much of the book has Theo dithering about whether and how to get this dude into the trial.

And it's just so... tiresome. I didn't really care whether this guy's testimony could or would be used, and I really didn't care about the seventy million other legal troubles Theo helped in, but I was curious to see how it would all turn out and then the ending just does something else entirely!

On the plus side? It's not Castle.

Recommendation: I think that if you are more willing than I am to suspend your disbelief and/or you are a precocious 7-year-old who thinks that law is pretty neat and wants to read books about kids and law, you will like this book.

Rating: 2/10
(A to Z Challenge)

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma, by Trenton Lee Stewart

It is just a week for finishing up series, it seems. After the last installment of this one, I was a little hesitant to continue, but I needed something to listen to at work and this is what I had. So it goes.

Luckily, I liked this one a heck of a lot more... for the most part. My plot problems with Perilous Journey are gone, replaced by an actually fairly interesting plot wherein the kids and the Whisperer are being protected from the bad guy up until one of them manages to run off and Bad Guy breaks in and steals the Whisperer, and the other three kids are left to fix this situation. And, awesomely, the evil genius bad guy actually uses some of that genius to totally screw the kids over. Awesome.

Of course, that means fewer puzzles, because that's how this series goes, but that's okay. I can deal with that. What I couldn't deal with was the annoying psychic bits, and then how the book ended — with a very strange move from the evil genius that just completely jarred me and then a way-too-nicely resolved mystery and future. You know how I hate it when people are happy.

Soooooooooo all in all it was another decent entry in the series, and probably quite entertaining if you're closer to the intended age level.

Recommendation: Again, for puzzle-lovers, and for people who've read the other books and want to know what happens.

Rating: 7/10

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, by Trenton Lee Stewart

Here's another series that I'm enjoying on audiobook... I listened to the first book about a month ago and have just now gotten to this first sequel. It's definitely great for work because the plot is quite simple so there's not too much stopping and going back any time my work area gets too loud or I have to go chat someone up.

The idea of this book is the same as its predecessor... children who are very smart and talented in different ways work together to solve seemingly insurmountable problems. But whereas in the first book this idea was set against a plot of trying to take down an evil genius from inside his base of operations, here the plot is a bit... weaker. The same evil genius is back, and he's kidnapped the titular Benedict, but for the most part his existence and actions are just there to give the story a time limit of sorts. The real plot follows a path of puzzles that Benedict had laid out for the children to follow for funsies, before he got all kidnapped and whatnot.

This plot is both better and worse than the one before it. Better, because I liked the puzzling parts and enjoyed having more of them to try to solve myself (where possible). Worse, because outside of the puzzles there is very little to this book. The characters do their thing, I guess, but it's not terribly interesting.

But! The puzzles are generally interesting, and some of the scenarios the characters find themselves in are in fact intriguing, and if you're listening to this book while doing something else you can skip all the boring parts. Sweet!

Recommendation: Good if you like puzzles!

Rating: 7/10

The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart

This is the kind of book that I would have read six times a week when I was younger. I have always been big into puzzles and riddles and whatnot, and the main character in this book (and series, apparently) has a keen eye for solving them, too. In fact, he's perhaps a little better at it than I am — or perhaps he's just a better guesser. Which is a good skill to have.

And especially in this story, as the main character, Reynie Muldoon, finds himself drafted into the titular society, whose aim is to bring together gifted and brave young souls to save the world. Silly world, always getting in trouble! This time, the world is facing some vague Emergency (isn't it always?) and the Mr. Benedict after whom the society is named has figured out that there are unsettling messages being transmitted into adult brains by children (because adults won't notice children talking to them, ha!). The exact point of the messages is unknown, but Benedict decides to send in his best and brightest on an undercover mission to the institute from which the messages are coming.

It's pretty exciting, is what I'm saying. Lots of danger and intrigue and lateral thinking. Reynie is the puzzle-solver of the group, while a kid called Sticky (because facts stick to him) has practically an eidetic memory, the Great Kate Weather Machine is a brute force to be reckoned with, and Constance Contraire is just stubborn, which isn't quite as useful.

At first, I wasn't quite getting into the story because it's all rather fantastic — I expected any minute to find out that everything was just some giant ploy to gain something or other. But no, this is a children's book and therefore quite attached to its ridiculousness. So just go with it. Once I did, I found myself enjoying it a heck of a lot more, because even the predictable bits of the story are infused with a self-aware humor that cuts a lot of the annoyance I had with The Sea of Trolls.

I will definitely be picking up the next book in this series, and then the one after that.

Recommendation: For kid geniuses, wannabe kid geniuses, and kid geniuses at heart.

Rating: 9/10
(A to Z Challenge)

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, by Alan Bradley

I read and enjoyed The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie way back in October, and I was delighted that there would be a sequel! I actually got my hands on a copy the day it was released, but various school- and work-related happenings meant I couldn't read it until it was well overdue to the library. Ah, well. So it goes.

The plot is thus: a travelling puppet show breaks down in Flavia's village and she makes friends with one of the pair, to whom the other of the pair is acting atrocious. The village's vicar invites the puppeteer to put on a show in town to make some money for the repairs of his vehicle, and Flavia ends up helping to prepare the show while spending her spare time being incredibly snoopy into the pair's affairs. Eventually a Terrible Thing happens and Flavia sets to solving the mystery.

It's hard to summarize this second mystery novel, as it is kind of short on the mystery... I mean, there's talk of what ends up being the mystery early on, but no one new dies until nearly halfway through the book, at which point I thought that the story would pick up but it didn't, really. And when the mystery was all wrapped up I wasn't sure that I, as the reader, had been shown enough clues to have figured out the mystery myself, which always makes me cranky. But for the most part, this book is less mystery and more "let's put a bit more backstory into Bishop's Lacey," which is all well and good but I wish I had been warned.

However, the writing is still fun and Flavia is still delightfully focused on her chemistry, so it's not all bad. I was thoroughly engrossed in reading the book once I had a chance to sit down and do so, and I am intrigued to see where Bradley goes in the next book, which he is apparently already writing. As long as he doesn't rely too much on precociousness and science to woo me (which, well, it does), I think the series could do very well.

Rating: 6/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2010, Orbist Terrarum Cahllenge: Canada, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
book-a-rama
BookEnds

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley (20 October — 23 October)

This book was really cute and enjoyable and full of just enough precociousness that I was entertained and not annoyed by the small child that is the protagonist. For yes, one Flavia Sabina de Luce, aged 11, is the heroine and crime-solver in this mystery. She also likes chemistry, especially poisons, and is kind of overbearingly smart but then I think so was I (in math, though, not in chemistry) at that age, so, you know. Can't really complain.

Flavia's mystery is one of murder and deceit and all the good things that crime stories are made of, set in a lovely little English town in the 1950s. One day, Flavia overhears her father arguing with a mysterious stranger in his office; the next, she is finding said mysterious stranger even more mysteriously dying in her garden. She hears his last word, "Vale" (Latin, of course!), and runs off to tell the police. Of course, the lead inspector condescends to our genius friend, and Flavia decides to go off and solve the crime herself. It's a good time.

Some of Flavia's experiences and the things she knew were a touch unbelievable, but not enough that I really cared. :) Generally, the whole novel flowed really well together, and even when it didn't — like during the middle section where Flavia's father goes off on a ridiculously long stroll down Memory Lane (Memory Interstate?) — I learned so many probably true things about chemistry and philately and magic tricks that I was sufficiently amused. I was excited to note in the "About the Author" section that there will be a second Flavia de Luce mystery. Yay, science!

Rating: 8/10
(RIP Challenge, Countdown Challenge: 2009)

See also:
Stainless Steel Droppings
Medieval Bookworm
Back to Books
Thoughts of Joy
book-a-rama

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl (18 August − 3 September)

Ugh. This book. I can't really decide whether I liked it or not, because I'm not entirely clear on what actually happened in the book.

Basically, you've got your protagonist, Blue Van Meer, an extremely smart and overly educated 16-year-old who travels around the country with her professor father, never living anywhere for more than a semester at a time as he moves on to bigger and better professorships. For her senior year, her dad gives her a gift − they settle down in Stockton, North Carolina for the whole year. She gets reluctantly adopted into a group of friends by request of the teacher they hang out with, Hannah Schneider, and she proceeds to have a really really weird year culminating in the death of Hannah and Blue's investigation into it.

I can tell you that with no reservation because Blue tells us on the first page that Hannah dies... but the woman doesn't actually croak until page 335 out of 514. Lovely. There's certainly some interesting character development in those three hundred pages, and a lot of really good clues that build up for when we get to the mystery part, but oh. my. god. I really was just waiting for Hannah to die the entire time.

The story really drags up to page 335, and then all of a sudden it's riveting, and then as soon as Blue figures out the mystery we jump ahead a couple of months and learn about those months through poorly exposited backstory. Sigh.

I'm not upset about having read the book, but I'm not thrilled about it either.

Rating: 5/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2006)