adventure

Book Review: Book Scavenger

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Book Scavenger
Book #1
by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure

Twelve-year-old Emily is a book scavenger. That means she takes part in a game where books are hidden to be found by other scavengers. The only good thing about her family moving (yet again) is that they’re going to San Francisco, which is where the founder of this game, Garrison Griswold, lives. But when Emily’s family gets to San Francisco, she learns that Griswold has been attacked and is in the hospital. Emily and her new friend James find a book hidden near the location of Griswold’s attack and suspect that it was hidden on purpose as part of Griswold’s next big game. But will this discovery make them the next target of Griswold’s attackers?

This book started out feeling a little like the Mr. Lemoncello’s Library series, with the wealthy benefactor of fun games for kids, the heavy book vibe, and puzzles, but add in geo-caching. It certainly takes its own path, though, so I’m not trying to say that it’s just like Lemoncello. In fact, I like this book more than the first Lemoncello, which is saying something. Besides the puzzles, reading, and hunting, this book includes wonderful themes of family, home, and friendship.

Emily and her brother remind me a little of my own kids, even though the age gap is very different. Emily and Matthew used to go book scavenging together, before Matthew got interested in other things; my kids have often gone geo-caching together. Our family has gone together a couple of times now, in fact, and it’s a lot of fun! So I had a pretty good frame of reference for the book scavenging game. And Emily’s new friendship with James—and Steve!—is the heart of the book.

There are moments in this book that are probably a little unrealistic, but who cares? In fact, some of those were some of my favorite moments in the book! I loved this book so much and highly recommend it to kids aged around 10-14 (my now-14-year-old daughter loved it when read it a year or more ago as well) but also for teens and even adults who enjoy books and puzzles.

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Book Review: The Dead of Night

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The Dead of Night
The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers #3
by Peter Lerangis

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade mystery, adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Maze of Bones.

Amy and Dan Cahill finally get a chance to take the fight to Vesper One, though somehow he still always ends up ahead. With seven of their loved ones still being held hostage and Vesper One making impossible demands of Amy and Dan, Dan is more determined than ever to create the Cahill serum so that he can stop the Vespers.

I enjoyed the main 39 Clues series, but I’ve been liking this one all the more. It’s a little darker, and our heroes have a seen-too-much kind of maturity. They’ve grown and changed since the original series in a way that’s completely realistic. I love the allies they’re picking up along the way, though I could do without the love triangle…or square? There are some questions and mysteries that come up or advance in this book that have me really engaged. I’m halfway through this series now, and I don’t have any theories about what’s going on or what might happen. This book ends with with a shocking moment, and I can’t wait to continue. I can really see this book (and series) being a fun read for anyone who enjoys mystery and adventure for a younger audience, no matter their age.

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Book Review: Mr. Lemoncello’s Fantabulous Finale

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Mr. Lemoncello’s Fantabulous Finale
Mr. Lemoncello’s Library book #6
by Chris Grabenstein

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s adventure

Thirteen 13-year-olds compete to win Mr. Lemoncello’s biggest competition yet. As Mr. Lemoncello prepares to name an heir to his billion-dollar empire, his rivals attempt to take him down once and for all.

This ending to a fun series is just what I wanted it to be. Mr. Lemoncello hasn’t gotten any less eccentric or generous, and Kyle Keeley is back at the center of things, with some new and returning side characters. Though I was able to predict a lot of what happens at the end of the book, younger readers will most likely be surprised by twists and turns. There is less of the puzzle-y goodness that first got me into these books by this point in the series (there are still puzzles, but not as many or as difficult to solve as I remember), but I still think this series as a whole is a good one to draw in reluctant readers, especially boys.

I recommend this book, and the entire series, to readers 10 and up, and I definitely recommend starting at the beginning. I also suggest reading the prequel, Mr. Lemoncello’s Very First Game, before reading this book, as characters and backstory from that book come up a decent amount in this one. 

The author’s note at the end of the book was a nice added bit of information, and I was very happy to read that the rest of this series will be made into graphic novels like the one that’s already come out for the first book. It’ll be a fun way to relive the series.

I received an eARC of this book, but then I pre-ordered a copy and sent in for the “titanium” bookplate with my name and my daughter’s name (who first introduced me to the series), signed by Chris Grabenstein. I was a little sad that some of the marker had smeared or scraped off in the envelope, and I’ll probably cover it with packing tape after I apply it to the book, but it’s still a nice collector’s item to have.

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Book Review: A King’s Ransom

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A King’s Ransom
The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers #2
by Jude Watson

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade mystery, adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Maze of Bones.

Amy and Dan Cahill continue to jump through hoops for their enemy, Vesper One, trying to save the lives of their abducted friends and family members. This time, they’re given the impossible task of finding a map that’s been missing for decades.

The Cahills’ saga continues strong in this 2nd book in the sequel series. Amy and Dan are forced to make decisions beyond their years, and pick up some allies and enemies along the way. Some major developments happen in this book, more than I expected so early, though I have to remember this series is about half the length of the previous. I enjoyed the excitement in this book and the little hints at a greater hunt that the Vespers are on.

I feel like the different-author-per-book issues aren’t as noticeable so far in this series, which could be due to there being a lot more to look at and build off of. Plus, both of the authors so far have written at least one 39 Clues book already. Amy still struggles with nerves, yet it’s clear that her training has helped her overcome some of it. Dan, though he’s clearly more serious and troubled than he used to be, still has his goofy moments that are reminiscent of his younger self. I appreciate the growth seen in these two; it’s realistic for what they’ve been through. I recommend this book for young and old, anyone who enjoys mystery and adventure for a younger audience.

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Book Review: The Medusa Plot

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The Medusa Plot
The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers #1
by Gordon Korman

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade mystery, adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Maze of Bones.

Two years after the events at the end of the main series, we pick up with Amy and Dan, trying to live a “normal” life. For Amy, this means dating a guy at school while secretly training in various disciplines at home. For Dan, this means the drudgery of normal school, but he’s also dealing with some internal distractions. When the Vespers make a move after 2 years of silence, it’s a big one. Now Dan and Amy are in a race against the clock to save some of their closest loved ones and some of their once-worst enemies.

This follow-up series to The 39 Clues starts off with a bang. Despite the hatred that these family members had for each other in the past, I think the ending of the main series was sufficient to pave the way for these young people working together now. And the fact that their parents aren’t necessarily on board with inner-Cahill-family friendship seems quite realistic as well. I particularly like that Sinead lives with Dan and Amy now and has established a com-center at their house. The way this generation of Clue hunters works together is nice to see.

Dan seems to have a sort of PTSD, where he’ll pull away from Amy and kind of recede into himself. She doesn’t know that he’s mentally working out how he can complete and use the serum that was destroyed (everywhere but in his memory) 2 years ago, so he can stop the Vespers. I really appreciate this aspect of the story and feel for these siblings who have already been through so much tragedy and just want to keep their loved ones safe.

I feel like, in some ways, the story has aged and matured past where it started. The original series could be read by as young as 10-11-year-old kids, but this series, so far, seems a bit darker and more mature than that. If kids sort of “grow up” with the series, though, and start this series after reading the first, at around 12-13, I could see it working. For my part as an adult reader, I enjoy the new, deeper elements to the plot and look forward to seeing where the story goes from here.

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Book Review: Al Capone Shines My Shoes

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Al Capone Shines My Shoes
Tales from Alcatraz #2
by Gennifer Choldenko

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade historical fiction

Spoiler notice: The following review contains some spoilers for the previous book in the series, Al Capone Does My Shirts.

Moose Flanagan’s life on Alcatraz may never be normal, but after his autistic sister gets into a special school, at least it may be calm for a while. That is, until he gets a note from notorious gangster Al Capone, whose help Moose enlisted in getting his sister into that school, asking him for a favor in return.

I knew this book couldn’t quite have the same punch as the first one, considering that the note from Capone at the end really blew me away. But there’s still quite a bit of intrigue when it comes to Capone and the prison, including a prison break that adds some excitement. Knowing that the author’s sister was autistic and was used as a basis for Moose’s sister, I appreciated the way she treats Natalie in the book as well. And the author’s notes after the book show that her research about Alcatraz and Al Capone were extensive, and she included plenty of that in interesting ways in the story.

My only gripe about this book is that it seems like all of the kids went a little nutty in it. Suddenly all of Moose’s friends treat him like crap, some for reasons I don’t think are ever even explained, even while one of them maintains that “everyone likes Moose.” In some ways, it might be completely normal for a group of kids at their age spending a lot of time in close proximity to behave this way toward each other, and some stressors are made clear, but it just made me scratch my head a lot and wait for everyone to start making sense again. Still, the story overall is enjoyable, and I recommend this book for pre-teens and young teens, as well as any adults who enjoy younger-audience books.

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Book Review: Vespers Rising

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Vespers Rising
The 39 Clues #11
by Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman, & Jude Watson

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Maze of Bones.

Though it’s billed as the last book in the main 39 Clues series, this book is really more of a launching point into a spinoff series: Cahills vs. Vespers. This book is a collection of 4 vignettes of different key points in the history of the Cahill family—the death of the patriarch of the family after he split the Clues into 4 sets and sent them with his four children; the fifth Cahill child grown up and trying to figure out how to proceed with her task; Grace Cahill coming into her role in the family; and Amy & Dan learning about the rival family and being sent off on another adventure.

Each of these stories dives in quickly and gives you just what you need to catch up and follow the action. Some are a little confusing at first, but I found each of them to be engaging in its own way.  However, it’s easy to feel like the Vespers were made up after the main series had found enough success that the authors/publisher wanted to be able to keep it going, because it seems strange that, with as dogged as these people are, they would not have come up even once during the Clue hunt in the first 10 books. Whether or not that will prove to be a detraction for the coming books remains to be seen (by me, at least), but I’ll definitely give it a try. I’m also not entirely sure how necessary this book is to the rest of the series. It’s definitely not at all important to finishing the main series. Whether it contains information that is crucial to the spinoff or not, I don’t know. I’m also not sure it would be quite as fun a read for middle grade readers as the rest of the series.

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Book Review: The Mystery of Locked Rooms

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The Mystery of Locked Rooms
by Lindsay Currie

My rating:2.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure

When her family is faced with foreclosure and moving to another state, Sarah and her friends West and Hannah decide to try to find the fabled treasure in a nearby abandoned funhouse built in the 1950s. They’ve solved lots of escape rooms together, so they know they have the best chance of making it past the riddles and puzzles to find the prize at the end.

I’ll get to the part of this review about the escape room side of this book in a bit, but I’ll start with talking about the plot and characterization. The plot was fairly basic—MC desperately needs money to save herself/her family, fabled treasure is available, she enlists her friends to help her get it. The ER elements aside, it plays out about like you’d expect. There’s even one character with a far-above-average memory, which I guess I don’t know how rare it is, but I have a feeling the statistics are something vastly lower than 1 in 4 people with that kind of memory, which is what a lot of MG books make it seem like. Throughout their experience in the funhouse, these kids are pushed to their limits and end up opening up to each other in ways that they haven’t in the past, and their conversations sound a lot more insightful and self-aware than kids would really be at this age (pre-teens, I think? I don’t remember if their ages are stated). Add to that the way the funhouse is just somehow magically set up to test each of their unique strengths and weaknesses, and I feel like it definitely could have been done better.

If this book had not been billed to be about escape rooms, I would have rated it higher. I’ll just say up front that if you’re thinking about reading this book because you enjoy escape rooms, maybe give it a pass. However, it is for younger readers, and most of them will have never played any escape rooms, or at least not enough to see the problems with that aspect of this book, so I doubt that would be much of an issue for them. I’ve only played about 30+ escape rooms, which is a low number amongst enthusiasts, but I have a difficult time believing that these 3 kids have played as many as they have at their age (and income level for one of them at least—escape rooms are expensive, and though it’s mentioned that she got a subscription or something to a particular business for a birthday present, that one business couldn’t include enough different rooms to account for the seemingly high number of rooms the book makes it seem like these kids have done). At the beginning of the book, they’re all excited because they beat a game with a very low escape rate, and then later it’s mentioned that it was their 3rd time attempting the room. In my experience, playing an ER multiple times is very uncommon. Plus, it’s mentioned later in the book that many ERs have multiple exits to the next room…also not something I’ve really seen or heard of much, if ever. Then the details within the funhouse, the way the escape room elements play out, just…don’t really make a lot of sense to me. The kids get excited over things they figure out that don’t actually mean anything or advance them, and riddles they find are somehow perfectly tailored to what they’ve done or the order in which they’ve done things, even though the puzzles are way too non-linear for that to be possible. In the end, this felt like every book or movie I’ve ever read/seen about a not-quite-mainstream fad (like when TV shows try to include MMORPGs) that is clearly written by people who do not have enough experience about the subject matter. I really can’t say if that’s the case with Currie or not, but it definitely fell short for me.

I was so excited to read this book. I figured that ERs have now been around long enough for them to be more correctly used, and this book certainly sounded like it would be a good one for that. It really wasn’t, at least to me. Between that and the drama in the plot, it just wasn’t as exciting as it seemed like it was meant to be. I didn’t hate it by any means, and it was a quick read. And as I said above, I am certain that pre-teens wouldn’t have any issue with the lack of escape room realness. That leaves the story and characters, which I still think were a bit weak, but it’s also entirely possible that they’ll resonate more with those of the age group this is meant for.

Thank you to Netgalley and SOURCEBOOKS Kids for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Payback

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Payback
Masterminds #3
by Gordon Korman

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi adventure, suspense

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series,  starting with Masterminds.

Split up and suffering the sting of betrayal, the four teens from Serenity, New Mexico, the happiest town on earth, have to decide whether their own freedom is worth risking to try to save their fellow clones from Serenity.

This is an exciting and satisfying conclusion to a trilogy that I have enjoyed all the way through. Though nothing can quite match the reveal in the first book, there were still some surprises in this one. It was maybe a tiny bit anti-climactic, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing in a book like this, especially one written for pre-teens. Like the previous books, each teen’s perspective is shown at different times, all in 1st person, and by now they’re all familiar voices. I especially appreciated Malik’s arc, which I was really starting to think was going to go a different way. I highly recommend this book, and the entire series, for teens and even adults who enjoy suspenseful teen books (though definitely start at the beginning).

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Book Review: Dragon and Liberator

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Dragon and Liberator
Dragonback #6
by Timothy Zahn

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for previous books in the series, which starts with Dragon and Thief.

Jack and Draycos race to stop those who are intent on wiping out Draycos’s people, and are now being aided in their quest by Alison Kayna and Taneem. When their plans go awry, both pairs of human and K’da must improvise and decide what it’s worth to them to stop the genocide of two races.

I’ve been anticipating an exciting end to this series, and it didn’t disappoint. It seems clear to me that Zahn had at least the skeleton of this entire story planned out from the beginning, as different pieces fall into place in this final book in ways that thrilled me. I even cheered at one point, which caused my husband to give me a funny look. The friendship between Jack and Draycos has been one of my favorite things about this series, and though the action squeezes the characterization out a bit in this book, I still appreciate the way it all comes together in the end.

I’m not generally interested in heavy sci-fi, but the fact that it’s written for teens probably helps make it more accessible for someone like me. I really enjoyed this series overall and recommend it for any fans of this kind of sci-fi, young or old.

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