The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

I listened to the audio. I quite liked the narrator for Flavia; she had a childlike and mischievous voice that was playful and interesting. (Which ended up fine even when I cranked the speed up to 1.7x to get through it faster.) Flavia was a bit of a hoot. I don't know a lot about child development, so I don't know if I totally buy all that stuff about chemistry being her primary hobby and knowing all the alchemical and medical stuff, but sure, we'll go with it. The conclusion was very satisfying, and her antagonistic relationships with her sisters was funny and realistic.

However, there was one issue that really reduced my enjoyment. This book was not published that long ago (in 2009, though set in 1950s), so the frequent casual racism used to infer that characters were sneaky and uncivilized felt like lazy writing and did absolutely nothing to further the story. It was jarring, and because of it, I don't think I'll be continuing this series.