Book Synopsis:
Some time has passed since the inimitable quartet of Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance have had a mission together. But with the arrival of a new Society member -- and a new threat -- they must reunite to face dilemmas more dangerous than ever before, including the villainous Mr. Curtain and a telepathic enemy tracking their every move, not to mention a dramatically preteen Constance.
In its triumphant return, the Society encounters all new challenges, but the series' trademark sly humor, sweet camaraderie, hairsbreadth escapes, and mind-bending puzzles are all as engaging as ever. Fans of the series will be thrilled to see the Society has grown up a little with them, while a new generation of readers will fall in love with these irresistible adventures.
My Review:
4/5 stars. This one was hard to rate. On the one hand, it was very fun and exciting, and I really liked the puzzles the gang had to solve in this book. The characters were also great, as always. On the other hand, though, it had the same problems that all the previous MBS books had - lots of telling instead of showing and long, slightly confusing descriptions, to name a few.
As is the case with all of the Mysterious Benedict Society books, the beginning tends to have a lot of reminding of things from previous books or catching up with what has happened since the last book, and it's always very tell-y instead of show-y. In this book, however, it felt like there was even more of that because there are years' worth of stuff between the previous book and this one to catch readers up on.
Speaking of the book taking place years later, the ages of the characters now was a little unclear. In my mind, Reynie and Sticky were 16, and Kate was 17, which would've put Constance at 7. Some details that would indicate their ages seem inconsistent throughout the book. They say Constance is a tween, meaning 9-12, but that would put the rest of the gang as at least 18. This can't be the case, though, because Reynie has been getting letters from universities telling him he's the youngest ever student. How old they are isn't super important, but I would've liked it to be more obvious.
Another issue across the MBS books is the long, detailed action scenes or planning scenes that are kind of hard to follow. When the characters are planning out what they're going to do and talking to each other about it, it tends to be a little jumbled and just a lot of words. The same goes for when they are actually doing the actions. I can get the gist of what's happening, but the specifics get lost.
Moving on the positives, this book felt the most "fun" out of all the books. Even though the stakes were pretty high and it was maybe the most dangerous, the action was very exciting. They skydived and hacked into security systems, two things that felt very action-movie-secret-agent.
The characters in the Mysterious Benedict Society are great, and that didn't change in this book. They all have unique personalities and their interactions with each other are so fun. As always, Kate was my favorite character. She's bubbly, funny, and determined. This book also introduced a new character, Tai. He was cute and funny, but also kind of annoying, but I guess he was supposed to be.
I thought the puzzles/riddles in this book were really clever. A lot of them involved wordplay, stresses of words and rhymes, and palindromes. I like words and language, so that was cool. I also liked that everything was planned from the beginning to be a trap for the Ten Men. At first, I thought the letter where it basically revealed the villains' whole plan, step by step, was too cartoon villain-like, but then it was revealed that that was part of the big plan by the Society.
Content:
Language: None
Sexual Content: None
Violence and Gore: Cartoon violence, nothing graphic. Characters get injured and use high-tech weapons, but there's nothing really described in detail.
Drugs/Alcohol: A villain unknowingly drinks a drink that makes him sick then knocks him out; no real drugs or alcohol.