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A review by actuallyjusthanne
The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I spotted this book in a bookstore around when it first came out, and thought it sounded interesting so I put it on my TBR! Frankly I am impressed I read it in the same year it was published lol
All in all, I thought it was just okay. I love stories set in old houses with puzzles and codes to decipher and found family, but unfortunately it fell flat for me. The concept of this book was really fun, but the execution was quite lacking in my opinion. It was a good cozy novel but the story dragged on for so long, and by halfway through the book, I was ready for it to be over and couldn't see how there could be more of the story.
The story follows Clayton, who has grown up in the Fellowship of the Puzzlemakers, a group of old people who like making puzzles, and his journey of self discovery. At the same time, the split timeline perspective is of Pippa, his adoptive mother, and her founding of the Fellowship of the Puzzlemakers. I thought the latter perspective was much more interesting, and I hoped there were more chapters than there were.
There were a bunch of puzzles throughout the book and at the start of some chapters, which I thought was really fun; I liked solving the puzzles as I read the book. Getting to read about all the different puzzlemakers and what brought them together was really sweet. My favorite in particular was Earl, the old man who made the hedge mazes and who was just lovely in general.
The stakes weren't high enough for the story to go on for as long as it did, and I just lost intereste The found family aspect of this book was really sweet but there were frankly too many characters for me to really be invested. Something about the writing style also really didn't sit right with me, and I struggled to stay focused while reading it, because the writing was so hard for me to comprehend.
The different people in the Fellowship of the Puzzlemakers were really cute and I liked how they all fit together. Unfortunately I feel like there were too many people there that weren't introduced properly, and they all started blending together for me a bit. I got Earl and Hector confused for a lot of the book, and that made a lot of the plot complicated to follow, lol. There were also way more characters that I never got straight.
I wasn't particularly invested in Clayton's journey to find his parents: I was never attached to Clayton as a whole and while I could see why it was important for him to find his parents, I didn't particularly care for it. It was really sweet but because I wasn't invested, it just felt really tedious, mainly because I never felt connected to him. When he finally figured out who his parents were, it seemed to come out of left field, and I wasn't very sure how he got there, but I was glad that it happened for him.
All in all, I felt like the book was a little too long for me, but at the same time, it was a really sweet slice of life, low stakes story. The message at the heart of the book was really lovely, about finding yourself and becoming your own individual person. I would recommend it but I wouldn't read it again.
All in all, I thought it was just okay. I love stories set in old houses with puzzles and codes to decipher and found family, but unfortunately it fell flat for me. The concept of this book was really fun, but the execution was quite lacking in my opinion. It was a good cozy novel but the story dragged on for so long, and by halfway through the book, I was ready for it to be over and couldn't see how there could be more of the story.
The story follows Clayton, who has grown up in the Fellowship of the Puzzlemakers, a group of old people who like making puzzles, and his journey of self discovery. At the same time, the split timeline perspective is of Pippa, his adoptive mother, and her founding of the Fellowship of the Puzzlemakers. I thought the latter perspective was much more interesting, and I hoped there were more chapters than there were.
There were a bunch of puzzles throughout the book and at the start of some chapters, which I thought was really fun; I liked solving the puzzles as I read the book. Getting to read about all the different puzzlemakers and what brought them together was really sweet. My favorite in particular was Earl, the old man who made the hedge mazes and who was just lovely in general.
The stakes weren't high enough for the story to go on for as long as it did, and I just lost intereste The found family aspect of this book was really sweet but there were frankly too many characters for me to really be invested. Something about the writing style also really didn't sit right with me, and I struggled to stay focused while reading it, because the writing was so hard for me to comprehend.
The different people in the Fellowship of the Puzzlemakers were really cute and I liked how they all fit together. Unfortunately I feel like there were too many people there that weren't introduced properly, and they all started blending together for me a bit. I got Earl and Hector confused for a lot of the book, and that made a lot of the plot complicated to follow, lol. There were also way more characters that I never got straight.
I wasn't particularly invested in Clayton's journey to find his parents: I was never attached to Clayton as a whole and while I could see why it was important for him to find his parents, I didn't particularly care for it. It was really sweet but because I wasn't invested, it just felt really tedious, mainly because I never felt connected to him. When he finally figured out who his parents were, it seemed to come out of left field, and I wasn't very sure how he got there, but I was glad that it happened for him.
All in all, I felt like the book was a little too long for me, but at the same time, it was a really sweet slice of life, low stakes story. The message at the heart of the book was really lovely, about finding yourself and becoming your own individual person. I would recommend it but I wouldn't read it again.