Middle Grade Madness! discussion

The first book in a mystery series! It sounds like a veritable treasure hunt and I hope I'm going to enjoy it...

I'm probably not going to be able to start this until Monday because I'm still trying to finish Quintessence.

(I somehow forgot I had an exam so I pushed back Quintessence. *How does one forget an exam?*)

Just got the book from the library! Hopefully going to be starting it within the next day or so (gotta finish from the desk of zoe washington first !)

@Bella how did the exam go? My digital library says I already downloaded a copy of the book so that saves me the effort of doing it again😂

@Virginia I'm also reading another book right now and I pretty much can't read 2 books at once. I find it takes me twice as long if I'm reading 2 books at once than if I just finished 1 and then moved on to the next, do you find it's the same for you? I'm halfway through the other book so when I finish it which will probably be in like 2 days I'll start reading this one! (Also looking forward to hearing your thoughts on From the Desk of Zoe Washington)

@Kadi that sometimes happens to me if I read 2 books at once, although, I normally have an average of 3-4 books going on. One book thats for school, one book thats just on my own time, one audiobook, and sometimes one more random book. So, I have gotten better at keeping track of the books.

@Virginia the most I can do is one book and one comic at the same time. I can’t do multiple books at the same time because I start to get the plots confused or I just make slow progress on both books rather than fast progress on one and then the other. I can do multiple comics at once though. That may be because they’re much faster reads too.

I’ve almost finished the other book I’m reading now. I reckon just one more day and I’ll be done and free to start the Forbidden Stone! It may even end up being my last book of 2020...

Ive done it yet again! I added the book to my currently reading shelf but I haven’t actually started reading it and it’s been a few days now😩 I just got an iPad so I’ve been wasting all my free time setting it up and messing around with the kindle app. Tonight I shall finally make it past page 2😂
How are you guys getting on with the book?

I just got to the half way mark late last night. So far, its really good!

@Virginia halfway already! Send any thoughts you have on specific things in spoiler tags and I’ll read and respond when I get to that point. I’ve just finished Chapter 1 and the step-brother is funny😂 I feel like it’s not often in mg books that you see step-families (or maybe I just need to read more mg books) so it’s really nice to see it here.

(view spoiler)[ did this work as a spoiler? Havent done this before lol (hide spoiler)]

Yay! the spoiler worked! lol

Spoiler for chapter 28-32, cant remember which, but its one of those lol (view spoiler)[ I do feel like it took a while for the action to get good, like how his father didn't get stolen until the midway mark (hide spoiler)]

I’m almost done. I have really enjoyed it so far. (view spoiler)[totally forgot that it had time travel in it! My love for this book just went up a lot (hide spoiler)]

So I'm just about to start Chapter 17 and here are some thoughts I have:
(view spoiler)[I don't feel the adventure vibes yet. Maybe it's still too early on but I'm close to halfway now. Also I think it might be the dad's presence. I feel like it's not an adventure whilst he's there and maybe that's because most adventure books it's just kids on a quest or maybe it's because I keep expecting him as a responsible dad to say "ok this is too dangerous lets go back home" and it doesn't seem plausible to me in the first place that he even allowed them to come to Germany with him. (hide spoiler)]
Did you guys feel the same?
(view spoiler)[ I keep waiting for the dad to get separated from the kids but I've realised that's not likely to happen because the dad is the link they have to Henry and the one who has answers out of all of them. (hide spoiler)]
The clues so far have politely intrigued me but not excited me. I think I need to give it some more time and I'm hoping it'll get more pulled in the closer I get to the halfway mark!

Yeah, I can see that. It has been a pretty slow start for me, and I just recently got all of these adventury vibes. It took me to like chapter 35 before I really started to get the adventure vibes.

@Virginia uuugh it seems like a lot to commit to if the story only gets exciting halfway through the book! Still, I'm close to halfway so at this point I might as well continue but if I'm not hooked by that point I might end up DNFing it. We'll see...

I just finished the book last night! I will say this, it had a REALLY slow start, but the ending was actually really good

I just reached chapter 23 and it’s starting to pick up now and I’m very intrigued. I think it’s improving by the chapter!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

Happy new year Virginia!🎉🎉

Soooo I decided to DNF this. It’s not that it wasn’t good it’s just that I wasn’t interested enough. Maybe it got better after the second half but the slow build up was so slow that I was choosing to watch shows over reading and I feel like I’m in danger of starting one of those New Years reading slumps like I had last year which can last for months! So DNFing was unfortunately what I had to do but maybe I’ll pick it up again later in the year!

Im so sorry you had to do that. But I know how much it stinks to be in a reading slump, so I understand why you DNFed it.

@Virginia yeah it’s just better to avoid one! I’ve already started my next read and the good news is I’m liking it a lot👏🏻

@Kadi P
That’s totally understandable. It was a very slow start and took me forever to get through. Better to just DNF rather than get into a reading slump. Especially at the beginning of a new reading year!

I finished this yesterday. I was very generous with my 4 star rating. I felt it had potential for the next books and I enjoyed a good portion of it so that’s how I ended up with that rating. @Virginia how did you like the book?

@Bella 4 stars is a great rating👏🏻 it wasn’t as if it was a bad book, just a slow one so I get that. Are you planning on reading the next book?

@Bella, I also gave it 4 stars. I felt like it wasn't a bad book, just that the author stretched it out far too long. I also think that the other books have a lot of potential to be better than the first one.