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I just found the fourth book in the Mysterious Benedict Society series, though it was published in 2012, and highly enjoyed it.
It starts off in a universe similar to that of the Series of Unfortunate Event series: The main character is a smart, caring, optimistic, creative, and cautious orphan. The adults are generally useless or dangerous.
And I quickly grew to love the main character. Small little things added up that are hard to show in quotes.
A faint impression in the man's hair suggested he'd been wearing a hat, though Nicholas saw none on the bench, nor any on the hat rack nearby. With some difficulty the man turned to a different section in his newspaper (the damp pages clung together) and resumed his reading, mouthing the words to himself. Nicholas, watching his lips, followed along for a tedious ten seconds ("...the impact on the price of wheat since the war's conclusion...") before losing patience and interest.
The middle of the book is focused on a mystery that of course does not get solved in the middle of the book and I feel they stretched parts of out too long.
Then there's a scene that reminds me of one in Malcolm X's life. He had grown up dealing with so much horrible racism that when someone told him that the white man was the devil, finally everything made sense. (Yikes!) Later when he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, he met white people who clearly weren't devils and as a result he changed his whole way of thinking in ways that were clearly difficult and courageous.
There are some good lessons about what kind of person you should be. I don't think I can even follow the main lesson; that's how trite it isn't. I'm just not that good.
And then there's a sudden, though believable, happy ending. I wish they would have stretched that part out a bit more and I would like to have seen a bit further into the future, perhaps a few weeks later when a certain character made a promised visit.
Mostly, I just enjoyed hanging out with the main character through the whole book.
It starts off in a universe similar to that of the Series of Unfortunate Event series: The main character is a smart, caring, optimistic, creative, and cautious orphan. The adults are generally useless or dangerous.
And I quickly grew to love the main character. Small little things added up that are hard to show in quotes.
A faint impression in the man's hair suggested he'd been wearing a hat, though Nicholas saw none on the bench, nor any on the hat rack nearby. With some difficulty the man turned to a different section in his newspaper (the damp pages clung together) and resumed his reading, mouthing the words to himself. Nicholas, watching his lips, followed along for a tedious ten seconds ("...the impact on the price of wheat since the war's conclusion...") before losing patience and interest.
The middle of the book is focused on a mystery that of course does not get solved in the middle of the book and I feel they stretched parts of out too long.
Then there's a scene that reminds me of one in Malcolm X's life. He had grown up dealing with so much horrible racism that when someone told him that the white man was the devil, finally everything made sense. (Yikes!) Later when he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, he met white people who clearly weren't devils and as a result he changed his whole way of thinking in ways that were clearly difficult and courageous.
There are some good lessons about what kind of person you should be. I don't think I can even follow the main lesson; that's how trite it isn't. I'm just not that good.
And then there's a sudden, though believable, happy ending. I wish they would have stretched that part out a bit more and I would like to have seen a bit further into the future, perhaps a few weeks later when a certain character made a promised visit.
Mostly, I just enjoyed hanging out with the main character through the whole book.