Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Prisoner's Dilemma (The Mysterious Benedict Society #3) by Trenton Lee Stewart

Synopsis from Goodreads:

IF YOU FAIL,


ALL IS

LOST.

Join the Mysterious Benedict Society as Reynie, Kate, Sticky, and Constance embark on a daring new adventure that threatens to force them apart from their families, friends, and even each other.
 
When an unexplained blackout engulfs Stonetown, the foursome must unravel clues relating to a nefarious new plot, while their search for answers brings them closer to danger than ever before.
 
Review:

The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart was a fitting finale to the trilogy. The action was mostly confined to the house during the first half of the book which reflected the feeling of imprisonment that Reynie, Kate, Constance, Sticky and their families were feeling. 

The book was mainly concerned with the Mysterious Benedict Society attempting to avoid being captured by the sinister Mr Curtain and protecting The Whisperer from his evil intentions. Can Mr Benedict find the cure for the condition that afflicts him?

We learn more about Constance in this book. Light is shed upon her experiences before joining the Mysterious Benedict Society. However her astonishing powers are never fully explained as her parents were normal, unremarkable people and it is hard to believe that Constance would be able to do so much from the age of two. Constance must also find out whether the man claiming to be her father is speaking the truth or whether it is one of Mr Curtain's insidious plots to make use of her incredible mental abilities.

We also discover the full extent of Mr Curtain's cruelty as he punishes Reynie for something Kate did as he knows this would cause her great emotional distress. At a point in the book, Mr Curtain is given an opportunity to mend his ways to become a better person. However, he must choose whether to make use of this chance or not. Surprisingly, a silly character such as SQ Pedalian plays a pivotal role during the climax of the book. 

The characters are well-rounded throughout the trilogy; by this book they are defined. I loved all the characters as they were so vividly written. However, I was not impressed when Milligan, a skilled agent, when locked in perilous combat with Ten Men, uses an old trick that he utilised in the previous book. I felt he should have done something new and original.

The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Prisoner's Dilemma was witty, well-paced and full of action, making sure I kept reading. Yet again, there were interesting riddles to solve and I really enjoyed trying to figue them all out. I liked how the characters interacted with each other and mostly I liked the battle between good and evil.

Overall, The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Prisoner's Dilemma was a fantastic read. I would recommend it to everyone as it was funny and full of action. Children and adults alike will love this trilogy. I can't wait to read more from Trenton Lee Stewart, beginning with The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict and The Mysterious Benedict Society: Mr. Benedict's Book of Perplexing Puzzles, Elusive Enigmas, and Curious Conundrums 

Book Rating: 5/5
Cover Rating: 4/5
Author: Trenton Lee Stewart

Review: The Dragon Whisperer by Lucinda Hare

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Quenelda has always had a magical bond with dragons, and her greatest wish is to fly one and fight alongside her father in the war against the hobgoblins. Root, on the other hand, wishes only to avoid the fearsome creatures, so the role of Quenelda's esquire is the last thing he needs.

Review:

The Dragon Whisperer by Lucinda Hare was an interesting read. It began well, with a gripping prologue which made me want to read more. It tells the story of an aristocratic girl named Quenelda and her dream of becoming a dragonrider and fighting alongside her renowned father against the hobgoblin swarm. What Quenelda does not know is that she has many more enemies than she could imagine who are much closer to home and her extremely rare abilities as a dragon whisperer places her in even more danger.

The Dragon Whisperer is exciting and packed with action and suspense. There are also a few shocking deaths and Hare does not shy away from describing extremely traumatic events in minute detail.

The characters are well-rounded. The main characters, Quenelda and her esquire Root, undergo dramatic and profound character development over the course of the book. The hobgoblin enemy however, seems to be 1D. They are, like in many other books, indistinguishable from the monotonous legions of the dead or the demon host, which is disappointing. I also think that there is plenty of scope for certain characters to be developed further as they have only been briefly shown in this book (such as the Queen).

The Dragon Whisperer contains quite a lot of modern military style vocabulary although it is set in a medieval world. Hare also assigns new names for the hours of the day and for the months of the year which takes some getting used to and forces one to do some rapid calculations. The book is well paced but ended abruptly as this book is only the first in a series. I definitely think The Dragon Whisperer is well worth a read and I am eager to begin the next.

Book Rating: 5/5
Cover Rating: 5/5
Author: Lucinda Hare

Review: The Maze Runner (Maze Runner #1) by James Dashner

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Imagine waking up one day in total darkness, unsure of where you are and unable to remember anything about yourself except your first name. You're in a bizarre place devoid of adults called the Glade. The Glade is an enclosed structure with a jail, a graveyard, a slaughterhouse, living quarters, and gardens. And no way out.

Outside the Glade is the Maze, and every day some of the kids -- the Runners -- venture into the labyrinth, trying to map the ever-changing pattern of walls in an attempt to find an exit from this hellish place. So far, no one has figured it out. And not all of the Runners return from their daily exertions, victims of the maniacal Grievers, part animal, part mechanical killing machines.

Thomas is the newest arrival to the Glade in this Truman-meets-Lord of the Flies tale. A motley crew of half a dozen kids is all he has to guide him in this strange world. As soon as he arrives, unusual things begin to happen, and the others grow suspicious of him. Though the Maze seems somehow familiar to Thomas, he's unable to make sense of the place, despite his extraordinary abilities as a Runner. What is this place, and does Thomas hold the key to finding a way out?

In The Maze Runner, Dashner has crafted a creative and engaging novel that's both mysterious and thought provoking.

Review:

I read The Maze Runner by James Dashner due to positive reviews which were highly complementary and because I love dystopian fiction. Though I was wary that the book would end in disappointment, I was trapped by the maze of the book. It kept promising to deliver answers and positive action but unfortunately, it did not do so on both accounts. It was a dead end.

I have a rule where I stop reading a book if I don’t think it has promise by page fifty. However, just as I was about to stop reading The Maze Runner; something dramatic happened through the appearance of the only female character in the entire maze. So I persevered- but my valiant effort was not rewarded.

The characters were 2D. They spent a lot of time swearing. Dashner changes the conventional swear words into made-up terms of his own. Only one term is explained; ‘clunk’ means shit and words such as ‘shank’ are never explained. The Maze Runner would have been better with less swearing, it just got in the way of the story. I’m sure the book would have been reduced by at least thirty pages if it had cut the swearing out.

The other characters constantly tell the main character, Thomas, to wait till later to find out answers which are never given. The Maze Runner was also so long-winded because the characters did not have any memories from before the Maze. Even when Thomas can get his questions answered from Theresa on several occasions, he instead runs away, leaving me infuriated.

Theresa, the only female character in the Maze, was a disappointment. She was two-dimensional like the other characters and didn’t do anything unless she was told to. She did not use her own initiative as can be seen at the end of the book where Thomas has to tell her (while fighting a monster) to push a very important button. Also, there was no point in the telepathic link that Thomas and Theresa shared as they did not say anything of great import to each other.

The Maze Runner had too much suspense and not enough answers. It is necessary to give the reader enough information to keep them going. Even when some information was given in the last few pages, it was not sufficient and I felt cheated. The storyline in the Maze should have been interspersed with scenes from the outside world and the scientists. This would have made it more bearable.

You would have thought the inhabitants of the maze who had been stuck there for two years would have attempted to compare the different sections of the maps together, however they only analysed the maps individually which I thought was odd.

I was not surprised by the ending as I had figured out that the survivors of the Maze had gone from one experiment to another. I think the characters would have been wary that this could have been a possibility. We never did find out what the Maze was meant to prepare them for, but looking at reviews for the next two books, it sounds really farfetched.

The Maze was a completely pointless exercise and I do not want to waste any more time reading the next books, The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure. At the end of The Maze Runner, Thomas and the others are lulled into a false sense of security which I thought they should have been smart enough to see through. I did not get a great sense of what was going on in the real world as this was rushed at the ending.

I would not have written a review of this book as I have wasted enough time reading it, but I thought I should give an accurate picture of my opinion of this book. The Maze Runner was not a worthwhile read and I do not recommend it, however if you liked The Knife of Never Letting Go- it’s more of that.

Book Rating: 1/5

Cover Rating: 4/5

Author: James Dashner

Review: The Dead and The Gone (Last Survivors #2) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales.

When Alex's parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves, he must care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and food and aid dwindle.

With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful new novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.

 
Review:

I really enjoyed Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, so I was looking forward to reading The Dead and The Gone, the second in the trilogy. It follows a male protagonist living in New York when the asteroid hits. Not knowing whether his parents and older brother are alive or not, Alex has to make sure he and his sisters survive.  

I was hoping for something more than a repeat of the first book and though it isn't the same, it pretty much follows the same pattern of the first book. I even felt that some of the characters from this book were identical from the previous book, such as Alex's sister Briana and Miranda's friend Megan. They were both religious, they both ate less than their share of food and... the third point is a spoiler.

What I liked was seeing survivors in a different setting; a city. New York felt like a ghost town, a city of the dead. There were many shocking points which I still remember, such as when a baby is trampled in a riot and when a man commits suicide by jumping off a building right in front of Alex and his sister Julie. The suicide isn't the shocking thing. The man hadn't even died and Alex was already 'body shopping' him.

Body shopping; stripping possessions from dead/dying bodies, really shocked me, even though it seems like a foregone conclusion in apocalyptic situations. Alex has a moral and religious dilemma throughout the book. Should he body shop? Should he steal from others' apartments? Was he really doing the right thing for Briana and Julie?

Though the style of the book is still dated entries, it is in third person, which is a big change from the first book and I didn't like this change at all. I didn't feel as if I knew Alex as much as I wanted. I really wanted to get into his thoughts more. His sisters felt 2D and we don't get to see the other characters for that long. I would have liked to have seen flashbacks of family moments and Alex's life before the asteroid. 

Also, I wished Alex had learnt to cook something. No point in being smart if you can't feed yourself. I wondered what he'd have done if both his sisters (the cooks) had to leave.

This book felt so much darker and colder than the first one which I think was the aim.  Unfortunately, the ending felt rushed and set up and I felt let down. There should have been more of a build up and a few more chapters after the 'end'. Overall, The Dead and The Gone was a good sequel, however, the characters weren't memorable and it didn't explore much more new ground than Life As We Knew It. There were some scenes which made the book worthwhile but I'm not sure I'll read the third book in any hurry.

Book Rating: 3.5/5
Cover Rating: 5/5

Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer