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A review by fallingletters
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart
1.0
Originall posted 20 June 2012 on Falling Letters.
***
I hate to give a Goodreads Author a one star review (because I feel like there is a better chance they might read it), so a little disclaimer - Mr. Trenton! If you see this, don’t be disheartened, it’s not all bad news. You wrote a whole trilogy, you created characters and adventures, and you got you stories published and well-noticed. I would be happy if I were you. The following is just one person’s highly subjective opinion.
Now here's my response to this book.
Ugh. I’m rather impressed with myself for finishing this book. If I don’t like a book, I have no qualms dropping it, but since I bought the trilogy for $10 and trudged through the first books, I decided to stick it out for the third. You can read what I did/didn't like about the first two books here; all the things I didn’t like in the first books are intensified in this one and unfortunately the few things I did like about the first books are not present in this one.
About halfway through the book I got very frustrated and decided to make notes on just what was bothering me so much: Necessary but unnecessary awkward over-explanation (hard to describe but you know it when you see it - for example, 'she pronounced rendezvous as if it rhymes with "Ben says mouse"' - this maybe isn't the greatest example but others included explaining why a door wasn't locked, or why something had to be done a certain way, etc.), awkward out of place torture (pg 264) and passages trying to 'up the risk' (pg 280), puzzles too contrived and too oddly/too logically/too easily solved (for example page 223). Okay, that last one sounds like I'm being picky. I'm having trouble describing what I didn't like, but I think just found everything a little awkward or too contrived. The book has all the elements of an intense, daring, child adventure/thriller/mystery but they are poorly executed.
I think the overall impression I got from this book was that it reads like a first draft, as in you just had the idea for the story and you wrote it down as it came to you. The book needs a lot of work, but you have the basic frame. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like this book got the haul over it could have used.
***
I hate to give a Goodreads Author a one star review (because I feel like there is a better chance they might read it), so a little disclaimer - Mr. Trenton! If you see this, don’t be disheartened, it’s not all bad news. You wrote a whole trilogy, you created characters and adventures, and you got you stories published and well-noticed. I would be happy if I were you. The following is just one person’s highly subjective opinion.
Now here's my response to this book.
Ugh. I’m rather impressed with myself for finishing this book. If I don’t like a book, I have no qualms dropping it, but since I bought the trilogy for $10 and trudged through the first books, I decided to stick it out for the third. You can read what I did/didn't like about the first two books here; all the things I didn’t like in the first books are intensified in this one and unfortunately the few things I did like about the first books are not present in this one.
About halfway through the book I got very frustrated and decided to make notes on just what was bothering me so much: Necessary but unnecessary awkward over-explanation (hard to describe but you know it when you see it - for example, 'she pronounced rendezvous as if it rhymes with "Ben says mouse"' - this maybe isn't the greatest example but others included explaining why a door wasn't locked, or why something had to be done a certain way, etc.), awkward out of place torture (pg 264) and passages trying to 'up the risk' (pg 280), puzzles too contrived and too oddly/too logically/too easily solved (for example page 223). Okay, that last one sounds like I'm being picky. I'm having trouble describing what I didn't like, but I think just found everything a little awkward or too contrived. The book has all the elements of an intense, daring, child adventure/thriller/mystery but they are poorly executed.
I think the overall impression I got from this book was that it reads like a first draft, as in you just had the idea for the story and you wrote it down as it came to you. The book needs a lot of work, but you have the basic frame. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like this book got the haul over it could have used.