The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding (a Prosper Redding Book, Book 1) (Prosper Redding, #1)

by Alexandra Bracken

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It’s been over a month since I finished a book (last one was late August iirc) so I feel a little rusty with these lol. But I’ll try anyway, if I had to describe this book’s experience then it’s about 80% of how I thought it’ll go before I even started it.

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Stories that are similar in elements are fine with me, the execution is what really matters when I’m factoring in my enjoyment. For this book, I’m honestly not sure what to think of it. I didn’t like the first half of the book, the premise itself isn’t so bad, don’t get me wrong but there was something about the way we went by it with Prosper and his family that just made it feel like the author is trying a little too hard to make him seem ostracized. I’ve never read a book by Alexandra Bracken before so I’m not sure if this is her usual style so this me from my first impressions. Since I’ve seen this approach in many mediums, I want something a little more than that feeling.

Now after the whole incident happened and we meet our new friends, Prosper seemingly had a complete personality change. In one city he was the loser but in another those loser-ish actions don’t actually carry on with him which makes it seem a bit inconsistent if you will just for the sole reason that nothing noticeable seemingly happened to cause something like this. It could be because of Alastor which in some way would be a clever twist BUT it doesn’t exactly happen in a way that makes that cleverness shine, just projected a feeling of inconsistency to me in some places. That being said, I enjoyed the second half of the book way more than the first half.

The banter between Alastor and Prosper was more amusing than when we started, theories appearing here and there implied that a nice mystery thing was going on and of course left me wanting to solve it. It wasn’t that difficult painting the edges of said mystery but the full picture needed more information before becoming clearer which to me was a nice side thing to follow.

So if I’m thinking sequels, I can’t see this book going beyond a second book tbh unless Alexandra Bracken can actually whip up something that calls for it which is just lost to me at this very moment. Would I be reading the sequel? Yes, it went like I expected but I do want to see where she’ll go with this and for how long. One thing I will definitely hope for though is more world building, since this one didn’t have all that much.

Final rating: 2.5/5