What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley

3.94 AVERAGE

elysahenegar's review

5.0
adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
YAY for another Flavia de Luce mystery! I fell right back into steps with Bradley's wonderful characters and thoroughly appreciated how well he writes them. I love that each book has its own mystery and new developments in the meta narrative too! This one includes a thrilling twist sure to delight Flavia fans. It's not that you can't read these as stand alone books but that you will miss a whole heap of history and richness if you don't start from the beginning. Highly recommend these for anyone who enjoys fun, quirky, intelligent characters, wry humor, and an ambitious plot. 

onetrooluff's review against another edition

4.0
I really thought I was done with this series! It was five years between this book and the last, and before that they'd come out about one a year. Ah, well. It's not like it's a hardship to go hang out with Flavia and Dogger again.

This had a lot of significant plot elements, enough to make the mystery itself kinda take a back seat. Some things got set up here that will provide plenty of fodder for future books. I will be looking forward to any new entries in the series.
quiet_reader's profile picture

quiet_reader's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
sammarcario's profile picture

sammarcario's review against another edition

3.75
adventurous challenging funny lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
rants_n_reads's profile picture

rants_n_reads's review against another edition

4.0
adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
eleana_p's profile picture

eleana_p's review

3.5
adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
kelsen97's profile picture

kelsen97's review against another edition

3.75
lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

ssejig's review

3.0
mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
Flavia de Luce is back! And this time, it's someone close to her who's been accused of murder. In fact, the opening scene is Inspector Hewitt interrogating Mrs. Mullet. It turns out, a man she's been cooking for, General (a minor government employee by his own words), has died. The coroner is saying it's mushroom poisoning. But Flavia is on the case.
What she uncovers is actually deeper than a mistaken mushroom picking. In fact, what she discovers is going to upend her world. 
I go back and forth between enjoying these books. Flavia believes that she knows all and that she is always right about everything? Are there people in the world like that? Yes. Do I mind reading books about people like that? No. As long as they seem like they are growing in some way. Flavia... does not. Also, Undine is so annoying. That may be because Bradley is a deft writer who makes you feel his characters emotions but I do not like her even when Flavia does.

fcrownover's review

3.5
adventurous emotional funny informative lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
This used to be a really good series, but the last few books have gotten kind of silly and far-fetched with all the secret society stuff. 

ashurq's review against another edition

4.0
Not as satisfying an ending as I would have liked, but it was so fun spending more time with Flavia. I absolutely adore her relationship with Dogger and also like watching her relationship with Undine develop.

Note: I received a free copy of the book from PRH Audio in exchange for an honest review.