Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

My oldest actually checked Marcus Sedgwick’s Scarlett Hart:  Monster Hunter out of her school library and read it; I grabbed it from our county library system because she thought her younger sister might enjoy it as well.  (I’ll be interested to see if that’s the case, actually; she might find it scary, she might find it confusing, or she might love it to bits.  One never knows.)  It’s been knocking around my bedroom for a while, waiting for me to finish it, and I finally committed myself to that very activity the other night.  Hurrah!  (By the way, if you’re thinking that most of my reviews begin with a book that’s been hanging around for a while that I’ve finally gotten to–you’re not wrong.)

Scarlett Hart is an orphaned young lady following in her monster-hunter-parents’ footsteps;  her loyal butler is both her partner-in-crime and her cover, since she’s too young to officially report their kills and collect the bounties herself.  Their world feels like a hodgepodge of Regency, Victorian, and Edwardian England (with a healthy dose of steampunk thrown in), but Sedgwick’s art focuses more on the monsters than the background details.  It’s a premise sure to appeal to adventure-lovers who don’t mind their monsters on the creepy side, and while the villains are fairly one-dimensional, the story works overall.  I was entertained but not entranced, in part (I’m sure) because I’m several decades older than the intended audience.  You’ll have to tell me what you think!