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Didn’t like this book at all. Perhaps if I was a kid myself I might have enjoyed it more but I think I would have predicted everything two steps ahead anyway. Most baffling though, there is some really awful and jarring anti-Asian racism in it that really threw me. It perhaps may have been excusable as “of its time” if this book had been written in 1950, but IMO it’s completely unacceptable for a book from the 21st century.
"There had been several times in the past, at work in my chemical laboratory or lying in bed at night, when I unexpectedly caught myself thinking, 'You are all alone with Flavia de Luce,' which sometimes was a frightening thought and sometimes not." (p.326)
For a mystery series with such an outlandish main character (11 year old chemistry whiz who raises herself in a giant english estate and solves mysteries, going by this first entry), the emotions provoked by Flavia's narration are deep, the co ...more
For a mystery series with such an outlandish main character (11 year old chemistry whiz who raises herself in a giant english estate and solves mysteries, going by this first entry), the emotions provoked by Flavia's narration are deep, the co ...more
I read this book partially because my uncle recommended it and partially because I've been looking to add some Canadian authors to my reading list but mostly because of the way the main character was described to me. This is the first book in a mystery series featuring 11-year old girl detective, Flavia de Luce. She loves chemistry and her specialty is poisons.
This is a highly stylized book taking place in the 50's. A murder has taken place in the garden of her old mansion, and Flavia aims to be ...more
This is a highly stylized book taking place in the 50's. A murder has taken place in the garden of her old mansion, and Flavia aims to be ...more
A light mystery set in the English countryside in the 1950s. Flavia is an 11-year-old girl living with two older sisters and her father in a huge English manor house. She loves chemistry and is trying to covertly poison one of her sisters to get back at her for various sibling crimes. Then a man turns up dead in the garden, and a dead bird shows up on the doorstep with a rare stamp stuck in its beak. Reminded me of the young adult mystery series Echo Falls by Peter Abrahams. My only complaint is
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Flavia de Luce is charming and delightful and her bike is named Gladys and she lives in a magical (not really) English country house called Buckshaw in the village of Bishop's Lacey and why aren't you reading this yet? Because the names alone are worth it. But maybe you should listen instead, because the narrator is TOPS.
My only issue--and it's pretty negligible because of all the charm and delight--is that we're supposed to believe that Flavia is 11--a precocious 11-and well, no. Not so much.
O ...more
My only issue--and it's pretty negligible because of all the charm and delight--is that we're supposed to believe that Flavia is 11--a precocious 11-and well, no. Not so much.
O ...more
Jun 07, 2010
Crystal
marked it as to-read
Jul 15, 2013
Jessica
marked it as to-read
Aug 19, 2013
Ashton
marked it as to-read
