From the Bookshelf of 2015 Snagged @ The Library Challenge…

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1)

Alan Bradley

Start date: January 30, 2015

Finish date: February 12, 2015

Discussion: Feb 2015

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 1 of 0 topics — 54 comments total

Feb 2015

Books Read in Feb
By TheGeekyBlogg… · 44 posts · 16 views

last updated Mar 04, 2015 02:10PM

showing 2 of 2 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Jun 29, 2018 Darlene rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian-book-challenge, audiobook, read-in-2018, mystery, audio-1000, library-cd

This historical cozy series is so popular, and I've wanted to read it for such a long time. Not only do I love cozies, but it's also by a Canadian author so for me that's a plus!! Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations.

The heroine in the story is Flavia de Luce, an 11-year-old girl who is quite curious and clever, and the setting is London in 1950. She is the youngest of three girls, and her mother passed away when she was just a year old. She's raised by her father, but the This historical cozy series is so popular, and I've wanted to read it for such a long time. Not only do I love cozies, but it's also by a Canadian author so for me that's a plus!! Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations.

The heroine in the story is Flavia de Luce, an 11-year-old girl who is quite curious and clever, and the setting is London in 1950. She is the youngest of three girls, and her mother passed away when she was just a year old. She's raised by her father, but there's no affection between parent and child. Flavia often is off on her own, in her laboratory (yes, she has one!) playing with chemicals.

When a dead bird is found on their doorstep with a postage stamp speared by its beak, Flavia's father becomes very unsettled. Later that evening, Flavia overhears her father arguing with someone and one of the things she hears him say is that they killed someone. Dogger, one of the mansion's servants, tells Flavia that it's none of her business and sends her off to bed. She awakens before dawn and sees something from her window. In their garden, she finds a man lying in their garden. She watches him take his final breath and hears him utter "Vale!" before he dies.

Before I started this series, I had no idea that Flavia was a child. I was quite surprised, but then the idea of a little girl solving mysteries appealed to me. For me, this story seemed to ramble on and on and there was so much extraneous information that was not relevant to the mystery and seemed like the info was there just to fill the pages. There were parts that were very boring to me and failed to hold my interest. This book won lots of awards, so it looks like I'm in the minority here! Given the popularity of the series, I'm willing to give it another shot and hope that I enjoy the next one more.

Memorable quote:

"As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

No … eight days a week."

Jayne Entwistle is a new-to-me narrator, and she kept me listening. She pulls off the voice of a child which is no small feat. Had I been reading as opposed to listening, I don't think I would have gotten through this one.

This review was posted on my book blog:
https://darlenesbooknook.blogspot.com... ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 27, 2016 Brooke ♥booklife4life♥ rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book, read-in-2016

**Short "end of month" Review**

Just read the bio, this was supposed to be 1950!? More like 1850 to be honestly. The accent of the voice actor killed it for me thou. Was a bit too high pitched, i understand she was portraying a young girl and might be an actual little girl, but i couldn't stand listening to it.

This had a very Sherlock feel to it, i kinda wish she had a Waston, but maybe in the next book she picks someone up to go with her on these adventures.

I liked when her bike was stolen and ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 12, 2015 Angel Parrish rated it really liked it

Shelves: snagged-library

Saved $3 because I Snagged @ the Library

What a great find, this series! You gotta love Flavia!! On one hand, you feel like a kid again reading these stories. On the other hand, the pace of the story, the topics, the chemistry (not a metaphor--the actual science of chemistry), the real danger...all of that is right there for the adult reader.

Great stuff! Love this! And it's CLEAN! ...more

Like · see review