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purplepenning 's review for:
Midsummer's Mayhem
by Rajani LaRocca
A sweet, funny, unexpectedly complex, slightly indulgent, middle grade tale of family, friendship, flavor, and fairies. Mimi, a young but promising baker, is the youngest of four and feels overshadowed and lost in her active and talented Indian American family. The perfect setup for a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"! Wait...what? Well, it mostly works. It feels slightly overlong and occasionally heavy-handed and some parts that are meant to be realistic aren't quite and some parts that are meant to be whimsical aren't quite. But! I especially enjoyed the layered mystery of trying to figure out what was happening and how that mapped to the original story. I also really liked the family dynamic, the respect given to diverse talents, the growth shown in friendships, the treatment of the Indian flavor profiles, and the interpretation of Tatiana and Oberon's meddlings.