Review: The Name of This Book is Secret

Title:  The Name of This Book is Secret

Author:  Pseudonymous Bosch

Publisher:  Little Brown

Genre:  Fiction/Mystery

After reading this book I thought WHOOOOOOAH!! Wait, no, that was after the end of the story blasted into my mind like a hundred gazillion meter tall wall of brackish ice. Then I thought WHOOOOOOAH!! This was one of those books where the author addresses you as “reader”. He doesn’t just let you stand by the sidelines and watch the story unfold. Here’s a paragraph (or two) from the book:

“I’m sorry I couldn’t let you read chapter one. That was when you would have learned the names of the characters in this story. You also would have learned where it takes place. And when. You would have learned all the things you usually learn at the beginning of a book.

“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you any of those things. Yes, this is a story about a story, but it’s also a secret story.”

The story is quirky, fun, and kinda weird. But it’s still a really good mystery. It has the potential to satisfy (almost) any reader. And it certainly has the momentum to emerge in a world with a scarcity of books as unbelievably awesome as this one!!! It has jostled with the rules, had defiance for limitations, and risen from its weathered habitation of extreme awesomeness!!! Sorry, I got kind of carried away there. The author uses some great tactics all around. There is an appendix (not the body part, the other appendix) and many side notes that are fun to read. It is part of a five-book series called the Secret Series.

The plot, as I said earlier, was weird, quirky, and fun. It is about two misfit eleven year-olds (one a survivalist, one a comedian/geek) who fall accidentally into a crazy evil scheme led by two equally crazy and evil people. I won’t tell you the details, but I will tell you it includes Egyptology (particularly the sucking of one’s brain), the (supposed) death of a magician, a box of smells, and a creepy spa.

The author goes about things in this book in a way that I can’t totally describe. He can’t tell you the actual names of the characters, or what they really look like, or where they live, or even what their backpacks look like, which gives you sort of a thrill of knowing the slightest thing about them. It may seem like bad writing to some people when I describe it, but it’s not. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things an author can do. (I know this from reading an unnatural amount of books, not from writing one myself).

The next book in this series is If You’re Reading This, it’s too Late. The appendix (again not the body part appendix, the other appendix) includes many things from Cass’s Super Chip Mix to a circus glossary. It has all the bits and pieces that soooooooo many books leave out. I would recommend this book to absolutely anyone ages 10 and up.

 

Posted by: Fred Reads