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Dec. 22nd, 2022 06:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyI already posted about the first Mystwick School book, and now I've read The Midnight Orchestra, in which the protagonist does something almost unprecedented: when she realizes she's in over her head, she tells the adults. And they listen, and help!
Unfortunately for her - but fortunately for the plot! - that help turns out to be ultimately a bit useless, but that's not due to incompetence or anything, it's just how it shakes out.
Also! It takes her very little time to realize that her friend isn't making fun of her behind her back, and that therefore the Mean Girl who knows too much must actually be working with the villain!
And she even manages to figure out that the villain is her father before the final confrontation. The observant reader will have figured it out beforehand, but we have the advantage of knowing we're reading a book.
All in all, a refreshing change from the usual way of things, which is that the kids don't tell anybody anything, and never figure out the plot until too late.
There are many bad parents in this book as well. I don't know, seems to be a theme lately with the books I'm reading. I swear I'm not doing it on purpose! But one of her friends is convinced to stand up to their terrible parents, and another one... well, honestly, it may never happen. We'll see. As for the protagonist... it's complicated. I do wish we'd seen some indication that she's in touch with her grandmother who raised her, though. Just a quick line here and there that she'd dashed off a letter to the woman or gotten one back. Right now it's a lot like she dropped off the face of the earth, and given that all parents visible on the page in this book are terrible, it'd be nice to know that the somebody at that school has an adult family member she can rely on.
Unfortunately for her - but fortunately for the plot! - that help turns out to be ultimately a bit useless, but that's not due to incompetence or anything, it's just how it shakes out.
Also! It takes her very little time to realize that her friend isn't making fun of her behind her back, and that therefore the Mean Girl who knows too much must actually be working with the villain!
And she even manages to figure out that the villain is her father before the final confrontation. The observant reader will have figured it out beforehand, but we have the advantage of knowing we're reading a book.
All in all, a refreshing change from the usual way of things, which is that the kids don't tell anybody anything, and never figure out the plot until too late.
There are many bad parents in this book as well. I don't know, seems to be a theme lately with the books I'm reading. I swear I'm not doing it on purpose! But one of her friends is convinced to stand up to their terrible parents, and another one... well, honestly, it may never happen. We'll see. As for the protagonist... it's complicated. I do wish we'd seen some indication that she's in touch with her grandmother who raised her, though. Just a quick line here and there that she'd dashed off a letter to the woman or gotten one back. Right now it's a lot like she dropped off the face of the earth, and given that all parents visible on the page in this book are terrible, it'd be nice to know that the somebody at that school has an adult family member she can rely on.
