Book: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Author: Alan Bradley

Genre: Mystery

Page Count: 306

Flavia loves chemistry, poisons, chemistry, poisons, and chemistry. But when she finds a dead man the garden in her family manor, she has to prove to the inspector (and the world) that she can solve this case before the police.

I loved the main character, Flavia, because of her obsession with chemistry, and her quirky attitude. I got the impression throughout the book that in her normal life, she just wanted to be left alone by everyone, to sit endlessly in her chemistry lab, only coming out to test her (non-lethal) poisons on her sisters. I got this impression because all of the supporting characters felt like minor characters, and Flavia spent the majority of the book alone investigating the mystery.

Another thing about this book I liked was its unique plot. Though it may sound like your common murder mystery, it is far from it. It has a few strange plot twists and an underlying storyline in the form of a chemistry experiment, which (I think) is much more important than the main plot.

I don’t think that I have anything negative to say about this book. The only thing I might say is that I felt like some characters could have had more backstory than the tiny bit we saw.

If you like mysteries, books, reading, or not reading, you should read this book.