Review: IF YOU'RE READING THIS, IT'S TOO LATE by Pseudonymous Bosch

Title: If You're Reading This, It's Too Late
Author: Pseudonymous Bosch
Pub info: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2008; 400 pp
Genre / Audience: mystery & magic / ages 9+
Caveats for Younger Readers: none, but the length may seem daunting

Having read Book #1 of the Secrets series, I was happy to reacquaint myself with Cass and Max-Ernest for Book #2. And who can resist the latest character addition, Yo-Yoji?

Goodreads summary:

Beware! Dangerous secrets lie between the pages of this book.

OK, I warned you. But if you think I'll give anything away, or tell you that this is the sequel to my first literary endeavor, The Name of This Book is Secret, you're wrong.

I'm not going to remind you of how we last left our heroes, Cass and Max-Ernest, as they awaited initiation into the mysterious Terces Society, or the ongoing fight against the evil Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais. I certainly won't be telling you about how the kids stumble upon the Museum of Magic, where they finally meet the amazing Pietro!

Oh, blast! I've done it again. Well, at least I didn't tell you about the missing Sound Prism, the nefarious Lord Pharaoh, or the mysterious creature born in a bottle over 500 years ago, the key to the biggest secret of all.

I really can't help myself, now can I? Let's face it---if you're reading this, it's too late.

Status: finished 9/6/14

My impressions:
Take another look at the Goodreads summary. That's the voice of the author. If you don't mind an author being intrusive--sometimes a bit in your face--then you'll be fine. If this kind of thing gets on your nerves, however, it will wear thin throughout this book. As reviewers have noted, there's more than a nod to Lemony Snicket in these pages. (Also: Be advised that the introductory chapter is not indicative of how the writer tells the rest of the story. He really does fade into the background.)

Generally, the Bosch voice intrudes in the form of footnotes, which are easy to ignore. I find these asides funny, but towards the end of the book I was skimming them because I was much more interested in Cass, Max-Ernest, and their new friend, Yo-Yoji. This is a fun, fast-paced mystery with a bit of magic and alchemy thrown in, and a nicely turned dynamic on the three friends and the decidedly preadolescent feelings that crop up between them. This is a tighter, easier to navigate tale than The Name of This Book Is Secret, and you won't be totally lost if you've not read that one, either. This volume stands on its own and just may send you back to see how the story began.

About Pseudonymous:
As you may have guessed, Pseudo (as his friends call him) likes to keep things under wraps. His official bio reads: "Pseudonymous Bosch is the anonymous pseudonymous author of the Secret Series. Not much is known about him other than that he has a passionate love of chocolate and cheese and an equally passionate hatred of mayonnaise. Rumors of Boschian sightings are just as frequent and about as reliable as reports of alien abductions. If you ever meet anyone claiming to be Pseudonymous himself he is almost certainly an impostor. The real Pseudonymous is said currently to be hiding in a cave in a remote jungle (although there are contrary reports that he is somewhere in Greenland)." The best-selling, award-winning Secret Series is complete (a total of five books), and Pseudo's newest series, Bad Magic, debuts tomorrow, September 16!

Online:
Kids and adults who love mysterious websites will get a kick out of Bosch's The Name of This Website Is Secret, which gives you news and fun info on his books and appearances, as well as his very funny Pseudo Blog. I would have been all over this site as a kid. He also maintains a Facebook page and Twitter account, though he claims to be antisocial. A superfun video about the books and two persistent young reporters out to discover Bosch's true identity can be found here.



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To follow my progress as I bulldoze my way through a stack of 51 to-be-reads this year, search for the tag 2014 TBR Shelf. Read all the reviews here. 

And be sure to visit Shannon Messenger's blog to see more fun links to great middle-grade reads and giveaways!

TBR 2014: Book No.10

When I first heard of The Diviners (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2012), I got that wonderful, shivery, goose-bumpy feeling that means, I have to read this! I might have felt it even if I hadn't known it was written by Libba Bray, but the fact that it was just added to the anticipation. I mean, Libba Bray, people: she of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy and the sublime Going Bovine. It's a ghost story/occult murder mystery set in one of my favorite places--Manhattan (New York, not Kansas, just to be clear)--and one of my favorite time periods--the 1920s. What could possibly keep me away?

"1920s New York thrums with giddy life in this gripping first in a new [series] from Printz winner Bray...The intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of character, dialogue and setting take hold and don't let go. Not to be missed."  --Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"The compelling and dramatic supernatural plot explores self-actualization, predestination, the secrets everyone hides, and, of course, good versus evil. An absolutely terrific read and, thankfully, the first in a planned series."  --School Library Journal (starred)

I'm already a little bit afraid to go to sleep after reading this book late at night! Ready to be chilled? Pick it up and read along!

** Also, blogfrogs, side note: Anyone notice that my shirt (kind of) matches the cover? Totally unplanned.

That's right: I've committed to reading all the books on my TBR Shelf this year--and blogging them! Click here to read the reviews I've posted so far.

Review: CAIN HIS BROTHER

Historical Mystery

Fawcett, 1995

432 pages  $15.00

First of all, to clarify: There are people who devour mystery novels by the bellyful. Some have read dozens, even hundreds, of mysteries. And judging from the space the genre takes up at my local bookstore, that fan base isn’t shrinking.

I have to admit, I can’t live on a steady diet of mysteries. In summer, whether or not I find myself on a beach, I like to read a few. Then my interest fades and I return to literary fiction, fantasy, and even, increasingly, good nonfiction. So I choose my mysteries carefully.

Anne Perry is an author I can always trust. I’ve read a few featuring her amnesiac PI William Monk, who picks his way through the grimy underworld of Victorian London, barely containing his disgust. In Cain His Brother Monk still faces his own unfamiliar identity while he tracks a missing businessman. The missing man’s wife suspects his vicious criminal twin has offed him.

The story is compelling, and includes a few surprises—Monk is always coming up against his old, forgotten self, which he discovers wasn’t always the nicest guy—but it’s the characters that make the story. We would all love to think of Victorian England as bright and merry, full of genteel ladies, parlors and tea, balls and carriages. But while the rich party on, the poor sink ever further into squalor, battling one horror after another. Monk’s prickly friend, Crimean nurse Hester Latterly, nurses a community through an epidemic of typhoid in this book. It seeps even into the upper crust of society, which is revealed to be just as human as its underbelly.

Perry’s unparalleled descriptions, concrete detail, and mastery of human nature make this a pleasure to read. Was I stunned at the conclusion? Not exactly. But I didn’t mind. I was happy enough just to be borne along into another world and time, while still able to sit in my comfortable home and be grateful for clean-running toilets.

Really.

If you're experiencing déjà vu, do not adjust your TV. A version of this post appeared in an another blog in 2008.

Review: IN THE WOODS by Tana French

Mystery/Suspense

Penguin, 2008

464 pages  $15.00

I reviewed Lisa Unger's BeautifulLies last month and gave it a half-hearted "fun summer read" rating. But if you really want to lose yourself in a summer crime story, put Tana French's first novel, In the Woods, on the top of your nightstand stack.

The premise is intriguing enough: The only surviving victim of an old unsolved case of missing children has grown up and become a detective. Once a carefree twelve-year-old in the suburbs of Dublin, now-Detective Rob Ryan has joined the Murder Squad and has only one real friend: his partner, Cassie Maddox. When Ryan and Maddox are assigned to a murder case involving a twelve-year-old ballet student from Ryan's hometown of Knocknaree, Ryan's memories start to return: The dense wood that was his childhood playground; his two best friends; the day the police found him catatonic and covered in blood, able to offer no memory of what had happened to his playmates, who were never seen again.

It seems Ryan has two mysteries to solve--who murdered young Katy Devlin and who robbed him of his own childhood twenty years ago? And could the two cases be related? And we're off and running.

One thing that makes Tana French's book such a great lose-yourself read is that the tension never dials down to a quiet hum. Despite being very much a police procedural--you get it all, investigation techniques, police banter, the blustering supervisor--the story is as much about Ryan's injured psyche and his relationship with Maddox as it is about the mystery. Each of the three stories--Katy's investigation, Ryan's memories, and his changing partnership--keeps its own thread of suspense taut throughout a surprisingly long novel. Told completely from Ryan's viewpoint, the book moves along, prodded by a complex, flawed narrator.

The prose style is elegant without being flowery, the pacing solid, the ending satisfying--or, at least, real. If you enjoy a good mystery, great characters, and late nights of annoying your significant other by keeping the reading light on, pick up In the Woods. You won't be sorry.