Ribbon
Reveka would like to solve the Twelve Dancing Princesses mystery, but she's not one of the princesses or a suitor. She's just an herbalist's apprentice who'd make good use of the monetary reward offered to not-suitors who tackle the puzzle. The Princess Curse is from a rare outside perspective and all the herbalism is pretty neat.
Unfortunately none of the characters have much personality. Everyone has the same voice and the only characters with any personality traits at all are relatively minor characters. And only two come to mind.
It's like Da Vinci Code for kids, without the blasphemy. I wasn't expecting much but Maze of Bones is a fun read. The main characters have a pretty typical sibling relationship, which works since the main focus is the puzzle solving. They have a lot of clue-chasing rivals and I had a little trouble keeping track of them all.
I'm a little concerned at how long this series is going to be. This book only gets through the first clue. If this becomes a 39-book series, I'm out.
Maisie Hitchins, who dreams of being a detective like the Sherlock Holmes expy who lives nearby, stumbles across two mysteries at the same time. Who abandoned that darling puppy on the cover? And what about the stolen sixpence in the book's title? Children's mysteries have to hit a delicate balance, not too obvious nor subtle, not too trite nor serious. The Case of the Stolen Sixpence is right on the mark.
There are wonderful illustrations, sprinkled throughout the book, of the characters and events. Maisie has wonderful curly hair, which is generally under represented in media.
As the cover picture implies, Rose is heading to Venice this book! But it takes half the book to get there and not nearly enough happens pre-Venice. I would have liked more time spent on Venician magical society.
Rose leaves her housemaid role behind, for the duration of this trip at least. All the minor characters stay in London as well. Mr Fountain is closer at hand for this book, treating his apprentices as important parts of the investigation rather than abandoning them to do “grown up wizard stuff” all the time.
It's a good story but not as good as the previous two. Lots of groundwork is laid for future books, to the detriment of the current book.
Listening to the audiobook, I was about a third of the way through the book when I realized the protagonist's name is “Sinda” rather than “Cinder” and this isn't the loosest Cinderella adaptation ever. Mandy Williams, the narrator, has a lovely voice and that makes up for the couple things that annoyed me in the story.
Over the course of the story, Sinda experiences and witnesses many levels of society, leading to very well rounded worldbuilding. The plot is satisfyingly complex as well. The male love interest is the typical “fun and popular” type most YA books use. This one is on the likable end of the scale, rather than annoying.
My biggest gripe comes with Sinda's reasons for not confiding in a responsible adult as the story pushes into the final act. She has none. She can't even think of a good reason. I found myself wondering if she was under a geas preventing her from telling anyone (or even leaving a note!) but she's not.
Poppy Pendle has the ability to use magic but her passion is for baking. Unfortunately her parents are delighted to have a witch for a daughter and can't imagine anyone not wanting to be magic, no matter how much Poppy protests.
If you feel Hufflepuff gets the short end of the stick in Harry Potter or Matilda needs more delicious food descriptions, this is your book. It's very cute and satisfying. The last 36 pages of the book are recipes for the pastries mentioned in the story. I haven't tried any of them yet but they're a welcome surprise after 200+ pages of delicious descriptions.
Most ancient creatures books stick to dinosaurs but not this one! Once Upon A Mastodon teaches about prehistoric mammals, with awesome art and typical Seussian rhyme. There's some tricky words to read aloud but the rhymes don't hinge on getting them right most of the time, so you've got some wiggle room.
Pink and her brother want to see the fairies that bring spring and build a fairy house for them, then go camping in the back yard in further attempt to see them. The fairy house construction is beautifully illustrated and creative and may inspire a whole line of craft projects. The story avoids directly addressing whether fairies are real or not, which I find more palatable than the Pinkalicious stories featuring Goldilicious, the ridiculous flying unicorn. This story is also a lot less fixated on the color pink than most in the series, which is a welcome break.
The politics from book 2 continues but can't rescue the book from two simultaneous love triangles. Chapter after chapter of conflict hinges on passive aggressive refusal to be the first to say “I love you.” The rebellion is fleshed out slightly more, but only enough to make you frustrated that it's not fully explained.
Not as bad as the first book. The focus shifts slightly from dresses and boys to politics and history. There are actually scenes that make you want to keep going until the conflict is resolved, which never happened in the first book. The cast has shrunk considerably so the other girls actually get some characterization beyond “sweet” or “Asian” or “slutty.” It's still not great but it's improved enough that I'll stick it out to the end.
With tighter writing and editing, this trilogy could easily have been one good book but everything has to be at least a trilogy to get published these days.
Incredibly trite. Good for tweens who still love fairy tales but are taking an interest in fashion and love triangles. For anyone else you've got to be pretty bored.
There are little scraps of distopian future, reality show, and politics tropes and more focus on any of those could have made it more interesting but mostly it's all about fashion, bland friendships, and PG makeout scenes. The narrator dodges saying words like “sex” or “rape” but the topics come up multiple times.
I listened to the audiobook, which is incredibly lackluster. The reader has just one “male” voice, so it can get confusing on the few occasions two males are actually interacting. Her “female” voice is her normal speaking voice, so there's no variation there. Spoken aloud, the names of the two love interests, Maxon and Aspen, are similar enough that I got confused several times.