Book Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

-

 

Title: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Author: Alan Bradley

Genre: Mystery

Age Group: Middle Grade





The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley is a murder mystery novel about an eleven-year-old girl named Flavia who decides to solve a crime. When a dead bird with a stamp impaled on its beak is found on Flavia’s doorstep, she is instantly curious. Later, when she watches a man die in her yard, she decides she needs to figure out how these incidents are connected, not trusting the inspector to do so. 

Do not read this book if you value your time. It is peppered with big words that are obviously just for show, like the author went through his manuscript and used a thesaurus to make himself seem smarter. While the plot is excellently planned, it’s not enough to make up for the biggest mistake of the book: Flavia herself. Mr. Bradley has clearly gone out of his way to make her “quirky” and “unusual.” Well, here’s a newsflash, Mr. Bradley: people don’t like characters who are quirky for the sake of quirky. It makes the character read like a special snowflake, and I, personally, have a feeling towards special snowflakes that “hate” is not a strong enough word to describe (perhaps "doubleplus hate" is more attuned). Reader of this review, if you consider yourself even remotely intelligent, you will know to spare your brain the horror that is The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  


My rating? Negative one out of five stars. I would not recommend this to anyone unless they’re extremely fond of mental self-torture and painfully killing off their brain cells, one by one. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Series Review: Masterminds by Gordon Korman

-
Image
  Author: Gordon Korman Genre: Science Fiction Author: Gordon Korman  Age Group: Middle Grade Number of Books: 3     Book #1: Masterminds     Book #2: Criminal Destiny     Book #3: Payback Serenity is the perfect place to live. No crime, no homelessness, no unemployment--why would anyone ever want to leave? Eli Frieden has lived there his whole life, and he's perfectly happy. That is, until he tries to take a bike ride outside of town and becomes incredibly sick. Eli becomes suspicious. After all, Serenity seems too good to be true. And when something is too good to be true, it usually is, as Eli learns when he discovers a terrible secret about the town he calls home. I did not expect to like this book. I've only read Gordon Korman once before ( Restart ), and the writing style and characters were way too cheesy for my taste. Even so, I needed a trilogy or duology to buddy read with someone, so we decided to give this a chance. And let me tell you...
Read more

Book Review: The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman

-
Image
  Title: The Devouring Gray Author: Christine Lynn Herman Genre: Paranormal/Fantasy Age Group: Young Adult Number of Books: 2 The Devouring Gray is about a girl named Violet who moves to a small town after her sister's death. But when Violet finds a body in the forest near her house, she starts to wonder if the town is normal after all and becomes determined to find out what is causing the murders and disappearances. The sad thing about this book was that it had potential. The characters were intriguing, at least on the surface, but as I read on it became clear that they weren't very developed, with the possible exception of Harper. The backstory of the founders was very well thought out, but the world building felt forced and plastic. This made it hard to get into the book. However, Christine Lynn Herman's writing was so good that it had me shivering. Her tone and style match what's happening in the story perfectly. My overall rating is four out of ten stars. If you...
Read more

Book Review: Suggested Reading by Dave Connis

-
Image
  Title: Suggested Reading Author: Dave Connis Genre: Realistic Fiction Age Group: Young Adult Suggested Reading is about Clara Evans, a seventeen-year-old girl who loves books more than anything. Naturally, she's devastated when she discovers that a lot of her favorite books are considered prohibited media at her school. Determined to fight back, Clara starts an underground library out of her locker. Will she be able to keep it from the strict principal? When I first found heard about this book, I had this weird feeling that it would be good. And boy, was I right. First, there's no romance. Yep, you read correctly: a YA book without romance! Maybe there's hope for humanity after all. Second, there's a lot of references. I caught slight nods to Disney's Moana, A Series of Unfortunate Events , 1984 , and The Hunger Games , which made it a fun read. Despite this book's amazingness, I do have one complaint. One of Clara's favorite books (that I wanted to put on...
Read more