The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

From the jacket: “In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950 — and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. ‘I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.’”

My take: Nestled outside of the village of Bishop Lacey sits the manor house of Buckshaw. Its inhabitants include the absent-minded widower (and avid philatelist) Colonel de Luce; his three somewhat annoying daughters, Daphne, Ophelia, and Flavia; and the Colonel’s factotum, Dogger, who suffers from the occasional bout of PTSD, stemming from the war. The story centers around the precocious youngest daughter, Flavia, who is a budding scientist, as was her mother, Harriet, who died while Flavia was quite young but whose presence still looms large around the estate.

The same curiosity and attention to detail that serve Flavia in her experiments prove useful when unusual events start to occur. First, a dead bird is left on the doorstep with an unusual stamp pierced by its beak. Then a stranger is overheard arguing with her father in his study late at night. Finally, she discovers a man dying in the garden.

When the police arrest Flavia’s father for the man’s murder, it is up to his youngest, know-it-all child to piece together a complete story from random facts, odd scientific know-how, and bits of 30-year-old stories from the Colonel and other residents of Bishop Lacey. But will the truth be revealed before it’s too late for the de Luce family?

I guess it would be fair to say I liked this book, but I found the heroine to be more than a little annoying. Perhaps she cut a little close to home in some of her attributes? Nonetheless, there was something gripping about Flavia’s tenacious quest for the truth, her overtly ambitious quest to be the person to solve the mystery, and her deductive grasp of facts. And it was impossible to read the story without being at least occasionally affected by the competition between the three girls for their father’s rare attention and their desperate desire to find an expression of love in their emotionally stunted lives.

I offer a tentative endorsement of the book. If you like other self-absorbed sleuths (Poirot and Holmes spring immediately to mind), I feel Flavia will suit you well. I liked it well enough that I will probably read the second book in the series, but not so much that I will run right out to request it.

Pages: 373

I’m way behind in my book posting, but thought I might try to catch up this week. I read this back at the beginning of February:

Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly

From the jacket: “Sixteen-year-old music- and sound-design-obsessed Drea doesn’t have friends. She has, as she’s often reminded, issues. Drea’s mom and a rotating band of psychiatrists have settled on a ‘touch of Asperger’s.’ Having just moved to the latest in a string of new towns, Drea meets two other outsiders. And Naomi and Justin seem to actually like Drea. The three of them form a trip-hop band after an impromptu jam session. Justin swiftly challenges not only Drea’s preference for Poe over Black Lab but also her perceived inability to connect with another person. Justin, against all odds, may even like like Drea.

My take: This book is precisely the sort of book I would have read in high school. Because of that, though, I knew right from the start how the novel was going to play out. There are some perils to being twice the age of the intended audience.

That said, I enjoyed it. I liked Drea as a main character. She’s never had a friend before, between her illness, which makes her have a hard time reading people, and frequent moves caused by her mom’s poor boyfriend choices. However, when, under duress, they must both move in with grumpy Grandma Horvath, a friend literally appears on the doorstep just after they arrive. Naomi is quick and fun and likes to test boundaries, which makes her both kind of scary for Drea but also exciting. Plus, she can play the drums and, it turns out, has an amazing voice.

That turns out to be a good thing because on her first day of school, Drea meets another new student, Justin, who, after a few false starts, becomes her second friend. He plays the keyboards, has similar taste in music to Drea, and is willing to teach her how to drive.

Unfortunately, just as Drea finally feels like things are coming together for her with making friends, forming a band, and creating a workable family living situation, other things start to show signs of fraying at the edges. Can Drea and her friends work things out to achieve a well-blended harmony? Or will they fall apart in an unsynchronized mess?

Pages: 280

The annual spring reading challenge has arrived. For the fifth year, Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings is hosting the Once upon a Time Challenge that encourages readers to spend the season reading from the fantasy genre.

I will be doing the Quest the First, which mandates that one

Read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology … or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

First up on my list is the new Jasper Fforde novel, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, which my local bookstore has on hold for me. After that, I’m hoping to tackle some of the books I have lying around the house or checked out from the library, including Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, Bill Willingham’s Peter & Max, and Janet Evanovich’s Wicked Appetite. I also think I have Erin Bow’s Plain Kate hiding somewhere in the Burrow, but I haven’t seen it for a while, so it’s a possibility that it’s actually an entirely different novel. But if I do own it, I’d love to find and read it.

Got any recommendations you think I should check out between now and the start of summer?

This week’s edition of Weekly Geeks asks participants to “tell us ten things about you with regard to books and reading.”

Here are mine:

1. When I moved South, I brought a box of my favorites with me at the same time as we brought the cats and our sleeping bags. We didn’t even have a bed down here, but I had two dozen of my favorite books to keep me company. Nearly every one of them was a children’s or young adult title.
2. I have probably a dozen boxes of books still in my parents’ attic.
3. I usually have several books going at once. I don’t understand why people find that odd.
4. When I’m not reading at all, it’s not a great sign for my mental health.
5. Books are my favorite presents to give — and to receive. I take my choices seriously of what to give people and only very rarely give novels that I haven’t yet read. Likewise, I will give a gifted book much longer than a normal novel if I’m having a hard time getting into it because I know a friend has thought enough of it to share it with me.
6. I can read and walk at the same time. This freaks people out.
7. If I’m caught up in a book, you can talk to me, and even though I might answer you, I am not processing what you’ve said and will likely not remember the conversation. (This used to frustrate my parents tremendously, who were sure I was intentionally ignoring their reminders about chores.)
8. I own two books that used to belong to my paternal grandmother’s sister Dot when she was a girl — one is a Nancy Drew mystery and the other is called Miss Billy by Eleanor Porter, the same woman who wrote Pollyanna.
9. Although I enjoy buying both new and used books, I am an avid library user and make liberal use of the D.C. Library’s online hold system. Periodically I also end up making a sizable contribution to the library through overdue fines. I like to consider it my annual dues.
10. I am indiscriminate about hardcover vs. softcover, and the issue usually comes down to a) is it a new book by a favorite author (such as that Jasper Fforde novel waiting for me to collect it from Politics and Prose) and b) cost (which means unless I can’t stand waiting to own it (Harry Potter novels 5-7, anyone?), I’m going to hold out for the paperback). Paperbacks are easier to carry in my bag and hold while standing on the metro (or while walking home from work), but I can manage with either if it’s a good book.

The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

From the jacket: “Meet Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator. Portly, persistent, and unmistakably Punjabi, he cuts a determined swath through modern India’s swindlers, cheats, and murderers. In hot and dusty Delhi, where call centers and malls are changing the ancient fabric of Indian life, Puri’s main work comes from screening prospective marriage partners, a job once the preserve of aunties and family priests. But when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant, it takes all of Puri’s resources to investigate. How will he trace the fate of the girl, known only has Mary, in a population of more than one billion? Who is taking potshots at him and his prize chili plants? And why is his widowed ‘Mummy-ji’ attempting to play sleuth when everyone knows mummies are not detectives?”

My take: A couple of bloggers whose taste runs similar to mine had favorably reviewed this detective novel, so when I saw it at Christmas, I reminded myself to request it from the library. However, after the first few chapters, I was a little afraid I was going to loathe the main character, Vish “Chubby” Puri, who is old-fashioned, opinionated, and more than a little obnoxious. He dislikes being compared to Sherlock Holmes, because Holmes is both a foreigner and a fictional character. Compare him to Chanakya, instead, please. He dislikes the “modernization” of India, which contributes to a seething unrest amongst the lower classes and which so often separates adult children from loving parents who can keep them out of trouble. (Of course, he’d prefer his own Mummy stay at home with the aunties and leave his business alone.)

But after a while, the good parts of his character drew me in. Chubby is dedicated and tries to do right by people, regardless of their class. He has a keen eye and quick intellect and values others with the same traits. Much of his current business is focused on looking into the backgrounds of those entering into arranged marriages, since now that so many people live in the cities, it’s harder for local matchmakers and aunties to make sure the unions they’re advocating are right.

Interspersed between these cases, though, Chubby does try to do some other sleuthing. For instance, he’s on the lookout for the person who shot at him as he was gardening up on his roof. He’s not having a lot of luck with leads, though, and he’s going to be really grumpy if he finds out that his Mummy has disobeyed his direct order to stop looking into the incident.

But what is occupying most of his time is the case of a lawyer noted for taking on the corrupt system who approaches him, saying he’s been wrongly accused of causing one of his maids to disappear in the night. But when officials up the charges to murder and imprison his client, Chubby must hurriedly move his ring of undercover agents into place in order to find out what really happened to a girl known to everyone only as Mary.

I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good mystery or who is interested in other cultures. There is a solid glossary at the end of the book that helpfully defines Indian terms, although I found it to be a little distracting to have to keep flipping back and forth during some of the exposition.

Pages: 310

The Magnificent 12: The Call by Michael Grant

From the jacket: “Twelve-year-old Mack MacAvoy suffers from a serious case of mediumness. Medium looks. Medium grades. Medium parents who barely notice him. With a list of phobias that could make anyone crazy, Mack never would have guessed that he is destined for a more-than-medium life.

“And then, one day, something incredibly strange happens to Mack. A three-thousand-year-old man named Grimluk appears in the boys’ bathroom to deliver some startling news: Mack is one of the Magnificent Twelve, called the Magnifica in ancient times, whatever that means.”

My take: An action series in a similar vein to Rick Riordan’s The Red Pyramid or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, this book crosses time and space, ranging from ancient days to modern times, and from Arizona to Australia. Our protagonist, Mack, comes into our story by standing up to some bullies picking on another kid. While this act nearly gets him beaten up, events quickly transpire that have him saving the life of the main bully of Richard Gere Middle School, Stefan, who announces he will protect him from all threats.

This is good, because he also comes to the attention of two mysterious and somewhat supernatural ancient beings: Grimluk, who announces that Mack is the heir to the Magnifica, the Magnificent 12, and must battle the Pale Queen (who is about to be freed after her eternal imprisonment of 3,000 years) to save the world from evil, and Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout, a wheezing leprechaun who heads up the Nafia, those malevolent creatures in the service of said queen and her equally dangerous daughter, Princess Ereskigal.

With an uneducated golem standing in for him at home and at school, Mack and Stefan board a plane that will take them to Australia where he has to convince another 12-year old to join the Magnifica. But with supernatural bad guys hot on their trail and Mack’s fear of flying, it’s not going to be as simple as just stumbling across her. Or will it?

The novel is cute and will definitely appeal to modern kids with its grasp of current technology and its irreverent tone. I’d be willing to read the second book when it comes out in the fall, but I won’t be rushing out to buy them, as I do with some series aimed at a slightly older audience.

My favorite quote of the book? “Of course [your golem] can text. He’s a golem … not an adult.”

This book, which I read way back in January, counts as my fourth and final book in the National Just Read More Novels Month Challenge, as well as my number category in the What’s in a Name 4 Challenge.

Pages: 243