Book Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Book: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce book #1) by Alan Bradley

Source: Library

Rating: 2 stars

Review:

I'm glad I checked this out from the library, this wasn't as good as I thought it would be. This was an okay read. Not very entertaining.

After finishing this book, I realized that I did not like the main character Flavia de Luce. Although, I found Flavia to be smart, I thought she was malicious, vindictive, snobby, selfish and rather ghoulish. Aside from her intelligence there was nothing likeable about her. To get back at her older sister for teasing her, Flavia poisoned her sister's lipstick with poison ivy. Then sat back and waited for the reaction. Maybe it's just me but I didn't find that to be an endearing quality.

I found the story some what interesting but I felt like the mystery was too easy to figure out. As well as the book started to drag by the constant unnecessary detailing of various chemistry elements and components. I like science but I was starting to get bored. I felt like the writer cluttered up the story with far too many descriptions (and not just with science) in this book. The story was also missing excitement and suspense and when the author finally featured it near the end it felt like too little, too late.

The author's writing style was also a bit unusual for instance many of the paragraphs in the chapters would abruptly start at another point in the story without any real transition or segue.

This was a rather disappointing read. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to read the second book but if I do I'm going to check it out from the library.