Book Review: The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding

Title(s): The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding (#1)
Author: Alexandra Bracken
Genre: supernatural/mystery/adventure (middle grade)
Rating: 3.5/5
Page Count: 362
Publication Date: September 5th, 2017

Plot:
"I would say it's a pleasure to meet thee, Prosperity Oceanus Redding, but truly, I only anticipate the delights of destroying thy happiness."

Prosper Redding is from an acclaimed family, but he's not all that special. Redding's run the town where he lives, where he's from, and everyone seems to look down on Prosper, even his twin sister, Prue.

And then he learns that there's something inside him called a malefactor, and the story goes from there. Alastor is trying to regain power to escape Prosper's body, but that's proving harder then he expects it to be.

Review:
Disclaimer: I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'd never read anything by Alexandra Bracken before - I know, I'm a little surprised, too - but this sounded like a ton of fun. New England, fall, middle grade adventure/mystery with some demons and such, sign me up.

Overall, I liked her writing. There wasn't any part I was super in love with, but nothing really put me off the story, either. I did feel like we got bogged down in the middle, even though stuff was happening I just felt like of bored with it? This might of been my jetlagged mind or something else me related, especially since it didn't last that long, but still a factor for why I didn't give it five stars.

Let me be clear, though, I really enjoyed this book. Three point five out of five is a good book. And this one was, even though I didn't completely love it. Our characters were interesting, but didn't pull me in all the way, which is probably why I felt that drag. Although, would read a whole book about Toad. I have no idea why, and I'm not going to explain Toad, but... best.

Prosper, our main character obviously, is interesting, though. Coming from a large, rich, successful family and being... not successful, having the worst luck. It was so... not pitiful, at no point is he pitiful, but he is kind of something. Sad? Melancholy? His voice is a little melancholy, we see from his POV in third person, and there's something about it that makes me think melancholy. But I really liked that about him, and about this book.

Al was also a great character, possibly my favorite, which says about me then I am comfortble with but I do love a good "villain."

Overall, I think this was just a solid book. Good writing, good characters, dragged for me but I don't mind that too much. And I'm definitely going to pick up the second book, hopefully next year? And I think it'll be drastically different in tone then this one, that's for sure, and I am super excited about that.

If you pick up this book, or have already, let me know! Especially if you've got thoughts.

Happy reading!

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Series Review: The Spiderwick Chronicles

Series: The Spiderwick Chronicles
Author(s): Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Adventure (Middle-Grade)
Over-all series rating: 4/5
Number of Books: 5
Books in Series: (Goodreads links)
The Field Guide
The Seeing Stone
Lucinda's Secret
The Ironwood Tree
The Wrath of Mulgarath

Plot/Series information (no spoilers):
This is a series about these three kids, Mallory, Jason, and Simon, moving into a kind of creepy old house that's in the family, Aunt Lucinda's house, because their mom thinks it'll be good for them and it'll be financially easier on her.
Right away they kind of start noticing things are a little off, that there's some mystery.

The first books just barely introduce the fey mythology, but it gets more into it in the later books. All of these books are short, but that doesn't seem to take away from the story at all.

Review (no spoilers):
The three main characters in this book - Mallory, Jason, and Simon - are perfect main characters. They're young, even for middle-grade, and they're a little odd. I loved them pretty much right away with how Mallory fences and Simon has his weird pet collection, Jason misses the city and everything from before. And they felt very real and very likeable/relatable.

They're good main characters to watch how this unfolds, because, at first, two of them don't believe their brother about what's going on. They have an overall good relationship, though, which grows and changes through the series.

The world in these books is something I adore. Reading them you also feel like the fey world is ten or twenty times bigger then we're shown, and I really enjoyed that. You meet a lot of different faeries/creatures over the course of the series, learn about them as the kids do.

What I did is I sat down and read this whole series in one day for the Bout of Books read-a-thon. And I thought I'd read them quickly, but they're just so easy to read, and you want to read the next one, so I was surprised at how quickly I read these. And when I finished the last one, I wanted to know what was going to happen next with the kids. I did think, though, that it wrapped up very well.

Overall, I'd recommend this series to any kid who likes fantasy with fey and anyone older who likes it, too. It is middle-grade, keep that in mind, but that doesn't change how likable the characters or how good the world building is.  The main point is I really loved this series. It was cute and fun, not incredibly in-depth or dark, like some things I read, but a nice break from that kind of thing and a fantastic read over all.

Book Review: The Name of This Book is Secret

Book: The Name of This Book is Secret (Secret #1)
Author: Pseudonymous Bosch
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery, Humor (MG)
Rating: 5/5
Favorite Character: Cass. First, that's my favorite girl name ever (I also really like Anastatia. I love names that are slightly older, long, but can be shortened into cute nicknames). Also, Cass is really awesome with her survivalist stuff.

Plot: (From Goodreads)

This is the story about a secret. but it also contains a secret story.

When adventurous detectives, Cass, an ever-vigilant survivalist, and Max-Ernest, a boy driven by logic, discover the Symphony of Smells, a box filled with smelly vials of colorful ingredients, they accidentally stumble upon a mystery surrounding a dead magician's diary and the hunt for immortality.

Filled with word games, anagrams, and featuring a mysterious narrator, this is a book that won't stay secret for long.

Review:
This book was adorable, I think it's the best word for it overall. I mean, 11 years olds going on adventures is always fun, especially where there's a lot of hilarious narration thrown in. The whole thing is, is that this is a true story and to protect the innocent, the author changes their names and everything and then makes comments about this and that (how he can be bribed with good quality dark chocolate). And it had me giggling through most of it.

And it isn't just funny, it also has an original interesting story in it. I loved the overall plot of this book and how things were revealed and everything. It was just really, very well done. And done in an hilarious manor. Also, Cass and Max-Ernest are great partners, excuse me, collaborators. And there are footnotes at random parts of the books that are just perfect.

This is a funny, silly book, but it does have some real mythology and stuff that I loved. This is something I'd recommend to someone who loves a good middle-grade adventure book, because that's what it is and it's really well done. The characters are lovable, the story is original, and the writing is very good and funny. All those things added it up for me giving it 5/5 stars and even reading some little snippets out loud to my mom that had her laughing, too. (I just really like when a book makes me laugh out loud. It's harder to make me cry, but I love laughing because of a book. I definitely enjoy it more, that is, if it's suppose to be funny).

(Also, this isn't important to the story, well, it kind of is. The chapters have illustrations and some of them are just great, just perfect. As you can tell, I really just loved this book, I really can't actually think of anything bad to say. All of the secondary characters felt real and I loved all of their little quirks and everything).

Book Review: A Mutiny In Time (Infinity Ring #1)

Book: A Mutiny In Time (Infinity Ring #1)
Author: James Dashner
Genre: Adventure, Time Travel (Middle Grade) 
Rating: 5/5
Page Count: 192 (Hardcover)
Favorite Character: I really like both of the main characters in this book, Dak and Sera. But apart from them I also really enjoy Gloria, who is not in this book very long
Release Date: August 28th, 2012 (Scholastic)

Plot: (From Goodreads)

Scholastic's next multi-platform mega-event begins here! History is broken, and three kids must travel back in time to set it right!

When best friends Dak Smyth and Sera Froste stumble upon the secret of time travel -- a hand-held device known as the Infinity Ring -- they're swept up in a centuries-long secret war for the fate of mankind. Recruited by the Hystorians, a secret society that dates back to Aristotle, the kids learn that history has gone disastrously off course.Now it's up to Dak, Sera, and teenage Hystorian-in-training Riq to travel back in time to fix the Great Breaks . . . and to save Dak's missing parents while they're at it. First stop: Spain, 1492, where a sailor named Christopher Columbus is about to be thrown overboard in a deadly mutiny!



Review:
I first heard about this at BEA, which is where I got my hands on a copy, and it sounded amazing. And it definitely lived up to what I thought it was going to be. I was surprised, really, by how much i enjoyed this book. And I'm so excited to see where the rest of the story goes.

But this is an original plot and the writing was fantastic, the description of some places making me feel like I was there, and I was glad I was able to read this one a little early so I could try and spread the word about this series because I think it's going to be a fantastic one.