Rereading childhood favourites as an adult is either great or... Frustrating.

I loved this book in the 7th grade and I struggled to finish it over 15 years later.

Little details kept bugging me - like the syllable name thing. What's Kira's 3 syllable name gonna be? Kirana? Will Thomas become Thomasson? How will a fourth syllable be added? Was Bartholomew once a Barth, then a barthol, then a bartholem? It works well for Christopher and Annabella but good lord this distracted be.

Similarly, the reveals were obvious. Painfully obvious. I don't want to say much more about that other than "of course he's the one who tried to kill you and of course you're alive it's been foreshadowed for the last 50 pages".

I've been thinking about rereading I am messenger because I remember enjoying it and wanted to read Son since it came out after I became an adult. But, given my disappointment here... I might leave well enough alone.

Ps: "Bogota Baltimore Toronto gone too" was the one little clever thing I enjoyed.