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100 Cupboards (100 Cupboards, #1)

N.D. Wilson

Start date: July 1, 2025

Finish date: July 31, 2025

Discussion: ✯Book of the Month✯

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✯Book of the Month✯

* ⭒September 2025 BotM - The Mermaid’s Tale [General Discussion]⭒
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last updated Sep 09, 2025 04:46PM

* ⭒September 2025 BotM - The Mermaid’s Tale [Questions]⭒
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What Members Thought

Sep 24, 2013 Mike (the Paladin) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ya-fantasy

My kids are grown, adults. That said I still often read YA books. They of course like books of any genre and reader level run the gamut from excellent to unreadable. They also have a range of maturity level.

I have mentioned before that books on the "YA shelf" can be YA,Ya or yA. This one I'd say is Ya...much more "young" than "adult".

We open here with a young man who comes to live with...well we'll not go into the relationship as that's part of the story. Let's say a distant uncle and aunt type ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Mar 14, 2020 Cat Carstairs rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy-magic, middle-grade

~Actual rating- 2.5 out of 5 stars~

100 Cupboards has probably been sitting on my bookshelf for around six years now, and I've just gotten around to it. To put it simply, I was expecting a lot more.

The reason I rated this so lowly is because by the stars, I don't think I've ever read anything so slow with so little action. The summary of the book on the back basically tells you everything that happens and it just wasn't interesting.

Quite literally, a major portion of this book was th ~Actual rating- 2.5 out of 5 stars~

100 Cupboards has probably been sitting on my bookshelf for around six years now, and I've just gotten around to it. To put it simply, I was expecting a lot more.

The reason I rated this so lowly is because by the stars, I don't think I've ever read anything so slow with so little action. The summary of the book on the back basically tells you everything that happens and it just wasn't interesting.

Quite literally, a major portion of this book was the main character, a timid and bland boy called Henry, scraping plaster off of his wall to unearth the 100 cupboards. Like, that was it. There were some shots of him playing baseball and eating cereal, but I was so bored out of my mind that this almost became a DNF.

The one and only reason I didn't DNF it was because this trilogy has been sitting in my room for far too long for me to just give up on it now. However, if the next book turns out the same, I'm not going to torture myself any longer.

My biggest problem with this book, next to it being incredibly sluggish, was that everything that happened was so jumbled. Nothing really made any sense, and the author kept sprinkling in what I suppose were meant to be "hints" but were just a filler that leads into the sequel, Dandelion Fire. This first installment did an absolutely horrid job of setting up the rest of the story. It gave me the same feeling I get when I read the second book in a trilogy and nothing happens because it's mainly focused on setting stuff up for book 3, except this was the first book in the series and...yeah, nothing made sense.

I was left very confused by the end, as it was underwhelmingly anticlimactic. The characters all felt like the same person- dry and boring. It was not exactly the thrilling read I was looking for now that I'm going to be trapped in my house for a few weeks because of COVID-19. Hopefully I will be able to breeze through the rest of the series and move on to more interesting novels. ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

May 21, 2023 Olivia rated it it was amazing

Loved this!
An excellent coming of age story and beginning of quite an adventure.

6 likes · Like · see review

Jul 26, 2025 Elena Hebson rated it really liked it

The tone of this book reminds me of something I would have read in middle school, in a good way. It was a quick read, because of both an easy writing style and an interesting plot. The writing style does an excellent job of helping the reader get to know the characters without being overbearing.

The main character was good, even though he isn't super interesting or different at this point. He has potential, and I like that. He feels like a very authentic 12-year-old, but not annoyingly so. In so ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Jul 28, 2022 Sharon Loves to Read rated it liked it

2.5⭐ I had heard great things about this book, but I did not find it to live up to what I had heard. There were way too many loose ends and unanswered questions at the end of the book. (I see that there is a prequel out, so maybe that should be read first.) I did really like the characterization in this book, though. Frank and Dotty are great, and the kids have some great "kid-like" conversations. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 03, 2020 Isaac rated it liked it

Shelves: children-s

Quite enjoyed this, and the fertility of Wilson's mind gave it depth, but to me Wilson felt a lot less developed in his skill as a writer in this book (in comparison the Ashtown Burial series, which to my mind is among the very best in the field). Plot and setting felt a bit clunky to me. Maybe it's just because I love Ashtown so much and had such high expectations... ...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Becky rated it it was amazing

Intriguing. I've always loved the idea of hidden passageways and fantastical creatures (much along the lines of the Lord of the Rings & the Chronicles of Narnia), and 100 Cupboards is very satisfying to these interests. Doesn't seem like a "youth" book to me though, more like a young adult or teenage reader, because it has some of the same elements from Harry Potter. I especially enjoy the characterizations and descriptions. ...more

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