Reviewed by tellemonstar on
Peregrine Harker is not your average 15 year old. He works as a journalist and is sent to discover the mystery of why tea prices have soared so high in England lately. Unfortunately this leads to people of all kinds trying to kill him - it must be very special tea. Or rather, something mysterious is going on with the tea and the shipping of tea into England from India. Our hero faces several near-death situations in order to find out the truth.
The story is very fast-paced and pretty much non-stop. To the point where I was feeling like "Woah. Slow down a little bit there, Peregrine. I have to process everything that's just happened to you." It felt a little bit like it was being told to me by my brother (who is the same age as Peregrine) and had a sort of stumbling over itself, not really explaining anything very much feeling.
One issue I had with this book is that you feel a little restless throughout it. The chapters are really short, and I felt that some of them could have been expanded. The storyline was intriguing, but would have been better with some more fleshing out and expansion on some of the areas. You just start to get into that part of the plot when it's finished with and you're moving onto the next thing that's happening. It seemed like the author was trying too hard to make it an exciting and action-packed novel. A little more background on Peregrine and Archie would have been good as well.
I think it is a good boys novel because there is quite a bit of action and if they are into action or adventure, then they certainly won't get bored. I didn't get bored as I enjoy a it of action and adventure in my reading, I just felt it was too fast. Almost like the author had a maximum word limit and needed to fit everything that happened into that limit.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 28 February, 2013: Finished reading
- 28 February, 2013: Reviewed