Pseudonymous Bosch

The book is quirky, engaging, and intimate, speaking directly to readers through text. Cass and Max-Ernest have very different backgrounds and are very different characters: Cass is a survivalist and remembers to pack all the things she believes she needs for natural disasters that don’t happen but not what she actually needs, such as schoolwork. Max-Ernest has a double name because his parents fought for their own choice and as a result Max-Ernest can never have favourites and has halved personalities so he cannot be diagnosed. But they work together to uncover a big secret. A secret even readers wish to learn.… (meer)

This is a great audiobook with some music and different actors doing character voices. (I often dislike "full cast" audio, but this was an exception.)

I listened to this with my 8-year-old. She found some parts scary, though I'm sure they were intended to be silly. I'm talking bout the homunculus being a cannibal and eating villains. Overall, we enjoyed it and will continue reading the series. Note: my daughter is obsessed with the Mysterious Benedict Society series and I'm glad to get her into something different, so I forgive this book its weaker moments.

This was originally written in 2008 and it shows. There are some cringe bits, particularly when the carnival workers are being described and the narrator says things like, "They were little people, which is a polite way of saying midgets," etc. (The chapter is called "A Polite Way of Saying Weird".) There's also a part where Cass says Yo-Yoji would never have a bar mitzvah because he's Japanese -- fair enough, but nowadays I think we'd recognize that a person can be Jewish and Japanese.

On the other hand, this series was ahead of its time in that Cass has two grandpas who are a couple and it is treated as unremarkable (though gay marriage was not legal throughout the US until 2015).… (meer)