Review: Love this setting and mystery!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 7, 2013
I really, really love international books.  I live in the US and have lived here my whole life, seeing a different part of the world through books is one of my favorite things about reading and I'll admit that the setting of this book definitely made it even better for me!Sean is an Irish teen now living in Brussels.  The book takes place in Brussels and we see a lot of the city.  I enjoyed all the adventures to the different places and loved learning more about the area now and it's history.  The history is light, but there are little things that we find out.  We hear things about Mary, the last Duchess of Burgundy,  World War II (though don't worry, there's no nagging on the Germans or anything, there's actually a good word in there for them) and we also hear things about the Belgium occupation of the Congo. Sean's new friend Stephanie's mother is actually originally from the Congo and so we see some racism in the book (just by characters we briefly run into), which is addressed, but never becomes an actual issue (I loved how it was done actually).  And I loved seeing diversity, which is what we see a lot of in this book.  Not only is Stephanie half Congolese but they go to the European school, so the students are from all over. And Brussels itself seems to be a bit of a melting pot.  The main languages are French and Dutch (and English, of course) so communication is something that's always sort of discussed, it's often an issue as not everyone knows every language.I really enjoyed the characters.  Sean is a quieter guy, not so bold and out there, and Stephanie is not at all shy.  She speaks her mind and doesn't really hold back at all.  I also loved that the parents were so important in the story and quite present, which isn't always the case in YA books.The mystery is a lot of fun.  There's some intense moments, but for the most part it's pretty light on the intensity.  The book has a lot of normal teenage stuff, going to school, going to the movies, swimming practice, etc.  But I personally enjoyed this.  I liked seeing what a teenagers life in Brussels might be like.  And having this mystery to figure out just moved it along and provided a bit of intensity making me even more eager to continue reading and finding out what's going on.  I never did figured it all out until Sean did, so the author was quite clever with those clues!I really enjoyed every moment of this book, it was a lot of fun and every moment was entertaining for me.I want to clarify a few things, to help you know if this is a book you may enjoy.  This is a YA book, but it falls into the middle category of MG or YA.  For YA it felt a little young, but there were a couple of words we wouldn't see in middle grade, so just keep in mind that it's younger characters for the YA category.  And while there were some words you wouldn't see in MG the book was actually quite clean.Another thing you may want to take note of, this is an Irish author so the spellings and sayings are sometimes different from the US version.  This is something I personally enjoy, but I have recently seen some that have thought these were editing errors (in other books, not this one) and that's not necessarily the case.I highly recommend this one!