Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’m going to give myself a free pass for the 1st, because back-to-back posts are tricky, and I only manage it sometimes when a month has an odd number of days.  Plus, I’ve been doing all the things.  Anyway.

Today I finished listening to The Unbreakable Code, the second book in Jennifer Chambliss Bertman’s ‘Book Scavenger’ series.  (Have I mentioned how much I want ‘Book Scavenger’ to be an actual game?  Because I would TOTALLY play it.)  Now, there are two kinds of series, right?  There are the ones where each book reads a fair amount like a standalone, and then there are the ones where the books continue where previous books leave off.  This one feels a bit like a hybrid; the mysteries are solidly standalone, but the character development is most definitively linear–chronology is absolutely important here.  Maddie, Mr. Quisling, and Matthew all grow into more important characters in this second installment, and Emily’s family’s living situation alters as well.  San Francisco continues to feel like a major character, which was more fun for me here because I read Russell Freedman’s book on Angel Island relatively recently.

As for the mystery?  I’m getting on the old side to unreservedly embrace stories of kids solving mysteries that adults have been unable to crack for decades, but it was a fun read, and the ‘who’s the bad guy’ question was handled in a way that I was impressively not annoyed by.  (Misunderstandings that lead to false conclusions drive me nuts if they drag on for a significant length of time.)

My mystery-mad 12-year-old is going to love it.