I've been on a roll lately trying new authors and books I may not have used to have given a shot. This book is one of those experiments. Truly, I end up picking a lot of books because of great sales on them as Nook books.
Now, I feel that a good book should elicit emotion from me. I should be able to see the story clearly in my head, have a good understanding of the characters, and feel emotion for the actions in the story. This book certainly elicited a lot of emotion from me. In fact, one emotion in particular. You know what that emotion is?
Infuriation .
I'll start right off with saying that if you get highly offended over anything, such as violence, turn around right now. This is not the book for you.
Emma, our heroine, has been beaten and battered physically and emotionally for years by her husband Jared. I will never personally understand why any woman would allow that. Our Emma makes excuses and allows it to continue up until Jared sells their two children to work on a farm. Jared needs his privates removed with a dull knife, in my opinion.
Emma, after a failed attempt to kill her husband and a failed attempt to kill herself finds herself along the Mississippi on her uncle's paddle boat. The floating hotel is in need of a cook and when her uncle absolutely refuses to allow Emma to go back to her good for nothing husband employs her in the boat's kitchen.
This is me, infuriated again. We start with a woman allowing herself to be beaten and then getting plunked down in a kitchen. Lovely way to lead a life.
Emma is befriended by much of the crew and two men, the captain/co-owner of the boat and the lead mechanic fall over themselves in love with her. Infuriated again, the solution to your problems is not to find a new man. It's to be a stronger woman.
Anyway, this theme continues and Jared follows the boat on it's way down the Mississippi by way of horse along the shore. He ends up killing several people while chasing the boat and gets his rocks, which should have been removed with a dull knife ages ago, off on it.
The ending of the book is something I actually did enjoy so I won't spoil it here. I will also add that even though I spent the majority of this book absolutely livid it really is quite good. It's just not a theme I feel particularly compelled to read. If a man hits you, you had damn well better do something about it, not sit around and take it like a meek little mouse only to leave him and land yourself fairly promptly with another man. See? Infuriated.
The last few chapters of the book really did save it for me, so I will give it three crawfish out of five.
I read the reviews and comments on this book at least a dozen times over the last year before I finally decided to buy it. And I will admit the only reason I did was because it happened to be on an amazing sale that day. I will be the first to admit that the premise of the story is a little bit odd, and I do usually like odd, but I was afraid it was going to delve into the land of cheesy. Honestly, when the cover of the book is a creepy little girl levitating and managing to look menacing all at the same time it certainly sends a message.
That message is this book is either epic or chintzy.
We start with a pre-teen or early teen boy. I'm going to call him Bob because I simply don't care to remember what his name actually was. So Bob is a weak, whiny little brat of a boy that offends his grandfather and doesn't appreciate what is given to him.
And yes, I very much doubt that was how he was supposed to be perceived.
Bob instead of helping his grandfather, who calls and specifically asks him for help, assumes he is delusional and his grandfather ends up dead. Bob now sees an evil shadow in the forest with his dead grandfather, who loved his grandson very much, and our main character spends the next several chapters in therapy. At this point, lets just say I was more than ready to put the book down. But, I never start a book that I don't finish, so onward we plod.
Wimpy Bob and his father go through the grandfather's things and Bob finds a box of old photos of children doing things like you would find in a side show act. Levitating, strong man, invisible boy etc etc etc. His grandfather had shown him the photos years before so Bob decides to go to an island. There is a heartfelt and touching story behind all of that but, just like his name, I really don't care to remember.
In a nutshell, Bob finds the kids, gets the hots for his grandfather's ex who never grew up, and nearly gets the invisible boy killed. The evil shadows show back up and now Wimpy Bob is expected to save the world. I imagine this is supposed to give hope to physically weak or odd children, but mostly the whole story is a bit creepy.
Nor worth my time or yours.
I'd give the Peculiar Children two topiaries out of five.
I love animals. I have three cats, a goofy German Shepherd, and a turtle with an attitude. What I've never understood is how people survive without pets in their lives. Personally, I think I would come apart at the seems without my pets. Some people have kids, I have cats. And what does this novel have?
This novel has Chet.
Chet is a dog. Not just any dog, but a dog that has been through canine police school. He did however fail after a rather unfortunate incident involving a squirrel but that's neither here nor there. Chet still has Bernie and together they are the Little Detective Agency.
Bernie Little's detective agency gets a contract to find a teenage girl that is a supposed runaway. Chet and Bernie find themselves in a world surrounded by Russian gangsters and dishonest men. Of course, Chet figures out what is going on right off the bat but it takes the slower humans a while to catch up with him. Silly humans.
While our brilliant and furry investigator gets dog napped, finds himself in a cave in, nearly gets put to sleep, and rescues his silly human twice from certain doom you get to share in their joy when they rescue the girl that was stolen from her family because of someone else's poor choices.
The book itself isn't long but you get quickly pulled into their lives and can't seem to put it down. I give Chet four and a half beggin strips out of five.
