Book Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society #2

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey (#2)
by  Trenton Lee Stewart
Date Read:  3/31/16
Rating: ★ ★

I found it hard to pay attention while listening to this book.  I recommend not reading this one, and just letting the Mysterious Benedict Society be a standalone book…read below for why…

It started off a year after the first book ended.  Therefore, we are regurgitated a little bit about what happened to each child during that year after they split up. It was interesting enough at the beginning to see the reunion.

However, shortly in to their new adventure I found myself bored. It wasn’t exciting and it started getting a little farfetched.  Constance has this “ability” to see patterns and tell who is coming based on their footsteps. Really? That’s not a normal ability.  Sticky also starts having a bigger and bigger memory – which just seems like something convenient the author put in there so they wouldn’t have to research anything.

I enjoyed the first one when the kids were a little more realistic in their “intelligence”…but the author is going too far – and this book just wasn’t very interesting or exciting.  I read several reviews about the third book and it sounds like it gets even worse. Apparently Sticky remember an entire library worth of information, Constance becomes psychic, and Reynie gets a “sixth sense”. This has essentially become a paranormal story, but still wants to be called normal.

I wish this series had stayed either one way or the other. It feels like the author wrote it as one book, and then it did well, so either he or the publisher wanted to make it a series. Therefore he had to come up with ideas for sequels, and it just wasn’t the same.  With all of this said, as much as it pains me not to finish a series, I will not be continuing this. There are so many books in the world it’s not worth it to waste time on a book I’m not going to enjoy.