Tornado Brain 🖋 Cat Patrick

 ' "If we don't die, let’s be friends," Colette said. 

"Okay," I said.

We didn’t die, so we were friends.'

🌪Frankie is a *neurodivergent teen; she can't handle loud noises, gets easily distracted, has no filter and often gets people on edge. Her one friend, Colette would have have been there for her through it all if it weren't for the big dispute that they had. It had been seven and a half years since they first met and two long months since they fell apart that Colette went missing. And Frankie was the last person to see her. Now Frankie and her sister Tess must follow Colette's clues through a trip down memory lane to find her before it's too late.

📝 A few intriguing details:

I loved this book so much because it not only shows Frankie solving the mystery behind her friends disappearance but also solving the issues with her sister. It was like a heavy hearted assurance while reading the book that now whether they find Colette or not, Frankie wasn't going to be alone.

* A neurodivergent is a non-medical term for someone whose brain works or develops differently for some reason. This book sheds some light on what it means to be neurodivergent showing their struggles and how they cope with them.

The Great Trouble : A Mystery of London, the Blue Death and a Boy Called Eel 🖋 Deborah Hopkinson

 

"'I ain't let on I knows anything about you. But Fisheye Bill Tyler is onto you - and a nastier man never walked the streets of London. He might've been an honest fish monger once. Those days are gone. He's turned bad. Very bad indeed.'"

📖This book was the first historical fiction I had read and I found it to be truly sublime! It was interesting to me because it taught me how people first learnt about cholera and while telling a gripping tale about a young boy all alone in London trying to keep himself alive.

🔵Eel a mudlark from the mid 19th century London, had enough adversaries of his own, having to make a living out of selling debris found in the filthy Thames river,  keep a lookout for Fisheye Bill Tyler who was one of the vilest men in London, and keep a secret that costs him four shillings a week. But on one thick, foul-smelling morning in August, his whole life takes a big turn as a cholera outbreak comes to his street. Though everyone believes that the outbreak spread through air Dr John Snow thinks otherwise. It’s s up to Eel and his friend Florrie to help the doctor prove his theory before it’s s too late.

The Van Gogh Deception 🖋 Deron Hicks

 ‘It was a masterpiece. The alchemist had indeed turned led into gold.’

📖 'The Van Gogh Deception' is a fast paced art mystery filled with QR codes so that we can learn more about the different sculptures, paintings and such, that our protagonists find on the way. 

🖼A boy appeared in the National Gallery of Art not able to remember a thing about himself. Not his name, address, parents, nothing. All he knows is art. But on his search to find who he really is, Art (the name he gets given) and his newfound friend *Camille, finds out he is sought after by a group of furtive people. As the plot thickens the boy must use the few clues he has to his past to forestall a great art fraud.

📝A few intriguing details;

Above each chapter and subchapter the time, day and place that the event takes place in (i.e the setting) is mentioned like a diary entry or a letter.

*Camille has a mug with a painting by Claude Monet. Up until this moment I didn't think much of the name Camille but upon further research i learnt that Camille is the name of Monet's wife. The amount of happiness this piece of trivia gave me is immeasurable!

Room to Dream 🖋 Kelly Yang

 '"And so I will carry on, doing the same thing I’ve been doing since the first day I arrived at the Calvista Motel: treating each customer like they’re family"' 

📝Mia and her family are heading back to China for a three month long well deserved vacation. But Mia's mind is tormented by the plethora of changes happing in her life; Lupe is taking high school classes meaning Mia will have to deal with seventh grade alone; her friendship with Jason is on the verge of collapsing ; in China and back home in Anaheim, smaller businesses are being pushed out of the field and its a real question whether or not the Calvista (their motel) will survive. Can Mia overcome these road blocks and save her future as well as the motel?

📖 I didn't realise that Front Desk was a tetralogy(series of four books) until Room to Dream and the fourth book in the series Key Player one day popped up in my book recommendations. I was truly ecstatic to hear this and bought the two new books tout de suite. I enjoyed the book mainly because it shows how Mia deals with her dilemmas. It proves beyond doubt that there is no issue that can’t be fixed.

📚 If you’d like to explore the previous books in the Front Desk series, here are my reviews!

Front Desk

Three Keys

Three Keys 🖋 Kelly Yang

" You're stronger than you think, Mia Tang."

📖Mia's life has certainly changed since we last saw her. She owns her own motel now which makes all the difference. Enjoyment at the pool, enjoyment writing reports for shareholders, and moreover enjoyment with family and friends were as good as it gets(of course as long as you forget the fact that your teacher thinks your writing isn't even good enough for a B+). But now Governor Wilson and the new immigration law that he brings along with him are bound to make a change in the life of not only Mia but the whole of the US.

📙Can we take a moment to admire the dust cover and design of the book itself? This is easily the most beautiful hardcover book I have ever got my hands on so far! Even so it's just a close second to the writing. Kelly Yang does not sugarcoat every little thing like most books do. Certain facts about the elections would have been erased and replaced if it were in another piece of writing. But that just proves that 'Life isn’t fair'. What matters is if you survive the unjust which is exactly what Mia did. This book like its older sibling is an enlightening piece of art.

 

 📚Click on the link below to read about the breath taking prequel to this book!

Front Desk By Kelly Yang

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire🖋J.K. Rowling

 

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE"

🏆Going to the the Wizarding Word Cup was supposed to be an enjoyable celebration of Quidditch for Harry and the rest of the Weasley's ... but for the followers of Voldemort it was a celebration of their leader's reign. At Hogwarts a Triwizard Tournament was set where it would compete against two other wizarding schools. The competition consisting of three tasks was sure to test the three contestants of more than seventeen years of age from each school on their bravery, magical abilities and their ability to cope with danger to find the most valiant of them all, yet on the day in which the contestants were to be announced, Harry found himself among the other champions when he hadn’t even given in his name! Nevertheless Harry has to participate in each perilous task battling dragons and ghoulish mermaids, as it becomes apparent why whoever it was put his name in.

📖This book has a lot to offer since we get to know quite a lot more about the Wizarding Word since we get to understand more about Quidditch World Cups, balls, dragons, mermaids, pensieves and characters like Cedric Diggory, Ludo Bagman, Mad-Eye Moody, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this book just as much as I enjoyed the ones that came before it but after this book it’s almost as though the whole mood of the series changes which I simply adored.

The Sinclair’s Mysteries : The Clockwork Sparrow🖋Katherine Woodfine

 'Sinclair's department store was so new that, as yet, it had not even opened its door to customers. But already it was the most famous store in London - and therefore, some said, the whole world.'

👒Sinclair's department store was not like your every day shop in London - it really was the most luxurious store you could find, filled with the best clothes, hats, sporting goods, a world-class restaurant and more. So when Sophie Taylor, a fourteen year old, found herself a job there, she was, of course, more than enthralled. But soon after the priceless Clockwork Sparrow has been stolen from the store, she finds herself in a great dilemma. Sophie and her newfangled friends are on the path to solving this mystery but the question is whether they can crack the case and live to tell the tale.

📖This book is such a riveting find! It is a mystery novel series, similar to the 'Enola Holmes' series but in my opinion much more interesting. Both the series' are similar in certain ways as they both take place in the great cosmopolitan city, London. Both these series’ discuss about the East End and they also take place in a similar timeline. Yet still, I find that they certainly have their differences and I still find that the Sinclair’s Mysteries series is my go-to when it comes to old-timey mysteries. If you enjoy being immersed in classics then you may enjoy reading the Enola Holmes series as well.