The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Sorry this post is coming a couple of days later than expected. I finished the book on Monday, but wanted to think on it a day before writing a post. And then yesterday I was out of commission due to being ill and lying in bed most of the day being entirely useless. Back at it today though! 

Flavia de Luce, 11, is an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. In the summer of 1950, a series of inexplicable events strikes her home, Buckshaw, a decaying English mansion. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. 

For Flavia, both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw.

I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.

To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is jailed for murder. He tells Flavia an astounding story of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, a stolen priceless object, and a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school tower thirty years before. Flavia ties tie two distant deaths together, examines new suspects, and follows the search to the King of England himself.



I was not overly enthused with this one. It was a very typical mystery novel, and as I am not really a mystery fan myself, I didn't enjoy it very much.

I also think that having the main character be a 11-year old gave it a very juvenile feeling. If it weren't for the adult vocabulary (It's a good thing I read this on my ereader because I was using the dictionary tool constantly for this book, and I'm an English major!), I would have thought it would be a young adult or teen novel. And don't get me wrong, I love me a good YA book, but when it's not what I expected it's kind of a let down. This book might be great for an advanced younger reader though.

I really don't have much to say about this one. I struggled to get through it and not much stuck with me as being interesting or all that creative. Flavia is an interesting young girl, if you like arrogant, yet brilliant young people...

One positive thing I can say about it is that it was wrapped up pretty nicely. No loose ends at the end of this mystery. Yet our protagonist is young, so I'm not surprised that this book is the first in a series, but I have a feeling the books will be sufficient on their own and won't matter what order you read them in. Kind of like Nancy Drew's. Yes. This is definitely an adult version of Nancy Drew.

Otherwise the book was pretty "Meh". Not really a recommendation. If you enjoy mysteries, you have probably read a bunch that are better than this one. If you are not into mysteries and want to get into them, do not start with this one, I think it will turn you off of the genre.