The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Finally! I'm done! The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie has been read and crossed off of my TBR list.  And now I must ask you not to hate me, because truthfully, though I did enjoy aspects of the book, I did not love it. I found it to be rather predictable, long-winded and slightly dull at times.  There were moments when I had to put the book down or just rush ahead in order to avoid a passage that went on about something or other that just didn't hold my interest.  I can understand why this book would be a bestseller and how so many people fell under its spell, but I just wasn't one of those people.  Don't get me wrong, Flavia de Luce is ace. I loved her character's carefree spirit; her love of chemistry and potions; her experiments on her rotten sisters; and her faithful bike Gladys.  What I didn't care for was everything else. 

It is the summer of 1950 - and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak.  Then hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his last breath.

For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. "I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't.  Quite the contrary.  This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life."

From that summary (found on back of book) alone, I was positive that I was in for a treat. But I wasn't.  I just don't think that the book was my cup of tea. Perhaps if I was a kid reading about Flavia, I would have enjoyed the book more. The sneaking out of the house, magic tricks, and intriguing mystery behind the stamp pinned to the bird's beak - all of these things would have caught my attention once upon a time.  However, in the now, I just wasn't as enthralled by it all as I had hoped.  Oh well, different strokes for different folks - in this case, books.