Series: Flavia de Luce #10

 

I have to say that listening to Flavia is a lot of fun, although I'm not sure I really understood what was actually going on in the mystery. I'm not sure whether I just wasn't paying enough attention or whether it really was as wishy washy as it seemed. But anyway, even if the mystery was only so so, Flavia's shenanigans are always fun. And I have to say that she definitely deserves her cousin, Undine. That little terror.

Seriously...I see that some of you all liked/loved this one but I am baffled. This is up there with "The Catcher in the Rye" with most loathsome young adult character I have read in like decades. Flavia is dancing towards being a psychopath. I would have brained her for the crap she was doing to her two sisters. And all of them were just the most dysfunctional family ever. I can't even tell you much about the murder. Someone was murdered. Flavia "investigated". Bah. At least I counted it for two separate games. 

 

So "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" follows Flavia De Luce. A man is found murdered in her family's garden and her father is soon taken into custody accused of the murder. Flavia who overheard her father fighting with the dead man thinks he did it, but is focused on getting him cleared of murder. Flavia's eleven and I guess could be called precocious. I don't know. I know she bugged the ever living life out of me. 

 

Look I don't know what to even say except I didn't like this one. Bradley didn't do a good job of developing Flavia beyond her being a terrible ass child. I can't say much about anyone else that is in this since they are merely there for Flavia to do terrible things to. My brothers would have buried me in our yard if I got up to half the stuff that she did.

The writing was unintentionally funny and circled back to Flavia being awful.

 

 

They’ll charge him with murder,” Ophelia said, “and then he’ll be hanged!”

She burst into tears again and turned away.

For a moment I almost felt sorry for her."

 

“What is it? My symbol, I mean.” “It’s a P,” he said. “Capital P.” “A P?” I asked, surprised. “What does P stand for?” “Ah,” he said, “that’s best left to the imagination.”

 

The flow was awful. Seriously. I had a hard time paying attention while reading this one. And it felt like sometimes that chapters went on forever. Bradley didn't do a good job of ending the chapters on a high or low note. Sometimes the next chapter was just following up with the action in the last scene so I was baffled why he chose to cut things off where he did. 

The book takes place in the 1920s in England. I don't know...it just read off to me the whole time. Maybe the dialogue was too modern and other times something seemed off. I don't know.

The book ended and I breathed a sound of relief. I have no intention of reading the other books in this series. 

 

I don't remember all that many details from the preceding book in this series, which is a pity, in that it would have helped me better understand this one. Whatever, Flavia is sent into exile in Canada. Sent to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Toronto to be exact. She is a member of a mysterious "cult"/"spy ring"/something known as the Nide. But no one can let on that they're members of this group, other than hinting at something about pheasant sandwiches. It's all oblique.

Anyway, the day she arrives at Miss Bodycote's Female Academy, a body falls out of her chimney. Who is it? Could it be one of the former students who disappeared mysteriously? Suffice to say, Flavia wanders around a lot, thinks about chemistry a lot, and even does some experiments. Eventually she figures it all out, but for some reason, is deemed not Miss Bodycote material, and is shipped home, where, we presume, she'll have another adventure with her chemical laboratory and sisters.

I gave this 4*, but it should only be 3*+.

Interestingly, two days after I finished this book, my spouse and I were watching a video of Dorothy Sayers' Strong Poison. Towards the end, they set up a chemical apparatus to do arsenic analysis, almost exactly as described by Flavia's analysis in this book. Pretty fun to read about it, and then see it performed in "real life".

Another weirdness is that all the rooms at Miss Bodycote's Female Academy are named after famous women. Flavia lives in Edith Cavell. Edith Cavell was a nurse in WWI who saved people no matter what side they'd taken. She was executed. The very next book I read had a reference to Edith Cavell in it, something about Edith Cavell in drag.

Series: Flavia de Luce #9

 

Another good installment of the Flavia de Luce series. This time Flavia is on holiday when she finds a dead body, so at least we're expanding the scope beyond the environs of Bishop's Lacey (sp?). This felt a little more solid than the last, so I'm bumping it up half a star. I wasn't sure it was quite worth four full stars, however.

 

I'd like to use this for one of the 24 Festive Tasks books, but I'm not sure whether it would best fit. I don't think I can make changes to any of the my already "called" door books, so I could maybe make an argument that some of those squiggles on the cover are water for Door 10 (Bon om Touk), or I think I can fairly confidently say that Flavia is a strong female character for Door 16 (Human Rights Day). I think calling this cover green would be pushing it, though, so those doors are out.

Series: Flavia de Luce #8

 

Flavia is back from Canada and up to her old tricks by discovering a dead body while on an innocent errand. She really has all the luck, doesn't she? I have to say that Flavia probably deserves her little cousin Undine, who at one point assaults her by swinging across the room or hall or whatever on a rope imitating Tarzan. This mystery mostly proceeds by Flavia questioning various people by posing as someone older than she is (about twelve now) rather than focusing on a lot of chemistry. So there's less of her gushing, basically.

 

I think I'll count this towards the Winter Solstice / Yuletide (December 21) book for 24 Festive Tasks since although there are references to a lack of decorations for Christmas because her father is ill and snow on the ground and some solstice traditions, it hasn't quite gotten to Christmas yet (unless I missed it).