Scan barcode
A review by chaosandbooks
Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor by Ally Carter
3.0
This was a solid middle grade, although my biggest concerns were the marketing and character development.
The cast of characters is far too wide and ends up with a ragtag team of undeveloped kids and the side adults. It would have been nice to see more attention given to the kids to give them personalities and not make them stereotypes. I know that middle grade suffers from this problem a lot due to the short pages, but this one really was noticeable.
The marketing also took me for a loop. It's labeled as Batman meets Annie and that's not at all the case minus the foreshadowing at the end for the sequel. There's almost no Batman aspects in this minus a brief action sequence that could easily be in anything.
I think a more apt description would have been Scooby Doo meets Annie or maybe Nancy Drew if we're just focusing on the lead character. There's a bit of cryptic lore, "scary bits," and a team of kids with different strengths that help solve a mystery of a missing billionaire. It's a lot like Scooby Doo if you ask me.
The cast of characters is far too wide and ends up with a ragtag team of undeveloped kids and the side adults. It would have been nice to see more attention given to the kids to give them personalities and not make them stereotypes. I know that middle grade suffers from this problem a lot due to the short pages, but this one really was noticeable.
The marketing also took me for a loop. It's labeled as Batman meets Annie and that's not at all the case minus the foreshadowing at the end for the sequel. There's almost no Batman aspects in this minus a brief action sequence that could easily be in anything.
I think a more apt description would have been Scooby Doo meets Annie or maybe Nancy Drew if we're just focusing on the lead character. There's a bit of cryptic lore, "scary bits," and a team of kids with different strengths that help solve a mystery of a missing billionaire. It's a lot like Scooby Doo if you ask me.