This book is the first in a series by R. L. LaFevers. It’s 1906, London, and Theodosia lives mostly in a museum that her father is a curator of. Her mother goes to Egypt often to hunt for archeological finds. Theodosia can sense all the curses on the stuff her mother brings back and other stuff in the museum. And she’s taught herself how to deal with the curses and remove them. Mostly. And she gets caught up in a web of secret conspirators and blah blah blah.
Interestingly, when I read that she was the daughter of the museum’s curator, I thought that meant her mother was curator. I’m not sure why I thought that, but I was definitely surprised when it turned out to be her father. I shouldn’t have been. I knew it was 1906.
This book pretty quickly lost my interest. Theodosia was sneaking around the museum and I didn’t care. It’s not that I don’t like her. I do rather like her. It was more interesting when she was interacting with people. Except even that didn’t help after a certain point.
She has a brother, who I can’t even remember was older or younger. I thought older, but then he acted younger. Maybe they’re even twins. I don’t know. And she meets up with an orphan, street urchin, pickpocket. Because every London in the early 1900s has to have at least one. They made things mildly more interesting, for a time. Until she ditched them entirely.
I was nearly done with the book. More than 2/3rds of the way through, not quite to 3/4ths when it shocked me by announcing Part 2. Part 2? Really? Just because she was headed for a ship doesn’t mean you needed to split the book in half.
Speaking of the ship.. the Rosetta Maru? Nothing other than the name seemed remotely Japanese about it. It’s not the only weird name in the book, most of which seemed to have chosen or created for humor value. I don’t see what’s funny about Rosetta Maru. It’s just jarring.
To get closer to the realm of nitpicking, there’s one scene where Theodosia begs the use of an envelope. And then she seals it. How? Had glue on the envelopes been invented yet? (Wikipedia says barely, perhaps 10 years before.) Was it at all ladylike to be sticking her tongue out to lick it? Because she definitely didn’t ask the guy for a damp sponge to do the job. Don’t go being all vague and hand-wavey. I was paying attention!
In general, though, while I did like the main character, I found the whole thing rather dull. Maybe if I was closer to the target age of the books I wouldn’t. Maybe if I was a boy reading it I wouldn’t. I don’t know. It was a lot of action. Action I didn’t care about.
Apparently Theodosia has doubts about the loyalty of her parents (to her, to Britain), but I didn’t really believe she really doubted all that much. So I didn’t get a feel for any of the angst she was (and wasn’t) doing about it. And, surprise, guys she thought of one way turned out to not be who she thought they were.
It’s rather a shame I didn’t like it more, because it reminded me of Lloyd Alexander’s Vesper Holly series. A historical series about a girl who goes on adventures. Only his is funnier, and more interesting, and just better.
So I won’t be reading the next books in the series. No interest in doing so whatsoever.
It reminded me a lot of Vesper Holly too, but much weaker. So much so that I didn’t want to compare them and make anyone think they were similar.
Either there’s such a lack of ‘young girl adventurer’ stories that that was the only one I could compare it to, or I just haven’t read widely enough in that area.
Either of which is likely.
I reluctantly think that it’s probably a lack of such stories. There are lots of boy adventurers, and quite a few mixed groups, but not as many where the girl is the clear lead. (At least not recently — there were quite a lot of them in the first half of the 20th century).
I find it hard to believe that we’ve both managed to miss a huge cache of these kind of books.
It’s easy to imagine that I have, since I don’t tend to read middle grade fiction. And I can’t say I’ve actively sought out female protagonists. And adventure fiction is usually not science fiction or fantasy.
But if you’ve missed it, then it doesn’t exist.
I see you had the same idea as I did about the brother and the urchin improving the story! :)
Clearly I need to read the Vesper Holly books.
I suspect almost /anyone/ coming along for her to work with (who was reasonably a peer with her) would’ve improved the experience for me. I couldn’t handle her alone in large doses.
I wasn’t actually sure about the brother and the urchin improving the story much. Though at least the brother was a slightly original spin on things — he didn’t believe her, he’s whiny, and he’s not really all that helpful.
As characters, the brother and the urchin are not very developed, it’s true. But they gave her people to talk to and rely on, at least. Perhaps it was more plausible that three kids could outwit adults than just one alone.