Thursday, October 6, 2022

My father and I just finished The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty

https://jaclynmoriarty.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Bronte-USUK.jpg

My father and I just finished The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty, book one of her Kingdoms and Empires Series.

Okay, let me me clear here; we have read a LOT of books over the better part of three decades, but NONE of them has so confounded me as to how and what to write about it once we finished. On Lantern Isle Bronte receives a special book from a very loud librarian, a book which one need only shake for the words you are looking for to fall out. Frankly, I could use that book right about now but, lacking it, I will try my best. It was a madcap adventure that went beyond the mere whimsicality such as is often found in Faerie (though this tale does not occur in Faerie) to the point of a nearly new sub-genre of Absurdist Fantasy. It was laugh-out-loud and groan-aloud. It was an utter joy and the closest to a Diana Wynne Jones book that we have ever encountered, which is the rarest and highest praise we can give a majestically spellbinding work that was a circus of surprises of every conceivable kind and a perfect ending. 

Splendid work Bronte for following those Faery cross-stitch instructions through Aunts and ice-cream, dragons and detective work, water-sprites and Whisperers, pirates and strange paintings, all the way to shaking that book to finding those three words. Until next time! (These are not the three words.)

No comments:

Post a Comment