Completed: The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

This was the second-to-last bedtime book I read with the kids (I'm going to try to get through a lot of blog updates today and tomorrow, to be up-to-speed for the new year!). It sounded similar to Artemis Fowl, which we enjoyed so much, so it seemed promising.

I will put the caveat in here that the boys really enjoyed this book. This is why it got 3/5 on Goodreads. All on my own, I probably would have given it a 2. The story was not horrible, but was outlandish and difficult-to-believe enough that it would have needed to have been pulled off with Rowling-esque finesse to be great. And Stewart isn't Rowling. The dialogue didn't flow well, the events felt pieced together, and none of it really brought you into that world - rather, you felt you were reading a book about a story. It never got to a point where you were forgetting you were reading a book at all, that you just got lost in the story. 

So, for me it was meh, and for the boys it was a lot of fun. I do note, though, that they haven't asked for any sequels, so perhaps not their favorite series in that regard (Artemis was an immediate sequel the next time we hit the library!). 

Title: The Mysterious Benedict Society (#1)

Author: Trenton Lee Stewart

Published: 2007

Pages: 487

Total Books Blogged: 57

Total Pages: 16,254