The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is 70-year-old Alan Bradley's first book. Here's a description from Amazon:
"It's the beginning of a lazy summer in 1950 at the sleepy English village of Bishop's Lacey. Up at the great house of Buckshaw, aspiring chemist Flavia de Luce passes the time tinkering in the laboratory she's inherited from her deceased mother and an eccentric great uncle. When Flavia discovers a murdered stranger in the cucumber patch outside her bedroom window early one morning, she decides to leave aside her flasks and Bunsen burners to solve the crime herself, much to the chagrin of the local authorities. But who can blame her? What else does an eleven-year-old science prodigy have to do when left to her own devices? With her widowed father and two older sisters far too preoccupied with their own pursuits and passions—stamp collecting, adventure novels, and boys respectively—Flavia takes off on her trusty bicycle Gladys to catch a murderer."I won this book from Goodreads.com. I was so excited when I got that email! I thought this was a good book. I'm not sure an 11-year-old would actually be able to solve a crime in real life, but I was able to suspend my disbelief for that. I wouldn't think that an 11-year-old would be able to understand old Chemistry texts and be able to make her own poisons either, though. I felt that Mr. Bradley tried to use a lot of long and sometimes obscure words in this book. Maybe he feels that they make a book "good," but I thought it was unnecessary.
I'm not going to criticize everything in this book, though. I really liked Flavia's attitude and the fact that she was so smart. I do think she should have been a little bit older, but I still really liked her. I also enjoyed the way she interacted with her sisters. Sometimes it was a bit disturbing that sisters would treat each other that way, but it was funny nonetheless.
Overall, I enjoyed this book well enough. I'm glad I won it and that I didn't buy it.
3 out of 5 stars
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