The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty is a well-written, whimsical story about ten-year-old Bronte. She lives with an aunt and her butler as her parents mysteriously disappeared on an adventure when she was a baby.
The story begins with news that Bronte’s parents are dead. This doesn’t upset Bronte overly as she never knew her parents. However, with their deaths and the reading of their will, comes instructions that Bronte is to visit her ten other aunts and deliver particular gifts to each of them. And so begins Bronte’s extremely inconvenient adventures. For the next four-fifths of the book, we enjoy amusing tales of Bronte’s aunts and their families. Jaclyn has cleverly portrayed these aunts with unique and unusual occupations. Bronte unwittingly learns information about the Whispering Wars, spells, dragons, pirates, elves and water sprites which becomes important in the final chapters.
The book has a very satisfying conclusion as many seemingly unimportant details in the early stages of the book become important in the final resolution. While this is a long book (500 pages), it moves at a good pace with short chapters and comical illustrations.
Overall it was good fun.
Thanks to Christian School Supplier for providing a free book for review.
I was interested to learn that Jaclyn Moriarty is Liane Moriarty’s sister, whose books I have also enjoyed.
