purplepenning's Reviews (1.72k)

Perfect balance of magical to real, traditional to contemporary, horrific to heroic!

Nestor, a middle grader whose dad is deployed to the Middle East, is used to moving around with his mom a lot, never putting down roots, never making real friends, and never letting anyone know that he can talk to animals. Until they move in with his abuela, who is being blamed for witchcraft in the woods and the disappearance of beloved animals. It'll take the help of all of his new friends (humans and animals) to defeat the evil in the woods, clear his abuela's good name, and give him the courage to find his community and his home. 

Incredibly sweet and incredibly candid, this funny, creative account of a Black teen's first time is pure gold and pure #goals. 

Kind of like Such A Fun Age meets Abbott Elementary via Finlay Donovan? A funny mommy mystery romp with satisfyingly snarky contemporary commentary and a surprisingly sweet side of romance (with a school psychologist, which feels like an underrepresented book boyfriend career now that I think about it!). You'll laugh, you'll squeal, you'll wish you had popcorn while you watch the PTA drama unfold ... and spill over onto Facebook. (Check the content warnings, though, because there's a dark thread that runs through the lighter shenanigans.)

Seeing this billed as a Jackson Brodie mystery that works as a standalone for those who haven't read the previous five books in the series — and also seeing that Jason Isaacs narrates the audio version — I jumped right in, hoping for a taste of the series and a smart, writerly mystery.

Verdict: a lot of work goes into the mystery, which does stand alone, but without as much Jackson Brodie as you might expect.

Character-driven vignettes make up the first three-quarters of the book and then swirl into a sort of gang's-all-here manor-house murder mystery that lands the whole thing just shy of a spoof. This is best read at leisure on snowy nights, which I definitely didn't do. The narration was great (did I mention — Jason Isaacs?) but it isn't the kind of story that works well for me on audio — too many characters, scattered around for too long, with a breakneck ending pace that left me wondering just how much I missed. As for the Jackson Brodie of it all — my interest is piqued, though I've been advised that previous books aren't quite as lighthearted as this one. 

We definitely need more like this for middle graders who aren't up for tackling longer books! Sweet, interesting, easy-reading, contemporary, mysterious, a little quirky.

A decent idea but unbalanced execution. Most troublesome — the jaunty "Murder She Wrote" tone and tongue-in-cheek cozy cliches just didn't match the more serious publishing-industry #MeToo storyline or the even darker background of horrific abusive at the castle. 

Picture Moira Rose from Schitt's Creek as an amateur sleuth investigating the murder of her rival in a community theater production.