Eden U. Bowditch's Atomic Weight of Secrets

Atomic Weight of Secrets or the Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black

The Atomic Weight of Secrets or the Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black by Eden Unger Bowditch

Young Inventors Guild Book 1

Bancroft Press-2011

www.younginventorsguild.com

Facebook: Yes

Rating: Not for me

Recommendation: YA/Children, Steampunk, Science fiction

Five young children, from different parts of the world, are separated from their parents and brought together at Sole Manor Farm with their teacher Ms. Brett. While there, they form a unique friendship and work together to create a world-changing invention. They hope that the invention will help them solve the mystery of what happened to their parents. But the invention and all the mysteries that surround their arrival all lead to a danger that they are not aware of and may not be ready to face.

I can say that this book is well written and it’s based on a good idea. But I can’t say that I particularly liked this book. Certain things bother me. The first and most obvious issue would be the title. It’s the length that bothers me, it makes it hard to remember and that’s not good. If there was a purpose for the length it was not revealed in the story (unless I completely missed it).  I think “Atomic Weight of Secrets” is a better title for the book than “ The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black”. Yes, I know it seems to be really petty to not like a book based solely on the title, but it’s more than not liking the title. It’s distracting; somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking  -hoping- that title was a clue to what was going on in the story. But combining the two doesn’t do anything. Something more important than the title would be the story itself. It was a great idea. There are little nuggets or breadcrumbs that appear to be leading somewhere and then it just stops. It’s like a fumble in a football game during the last play, the team is only points away from taking the lead nd winning. The ending reminds me of when you ask someone a question and they give you a really long answer that has nothing to do with your question. Maybe the resolution comes in the second book, but . . .

While it offers an interesting perspective, I am missing the connection with the characters. It’s sad that the kids are separated from their parents, but in truth they’re already used to not having them around. And the kids prove that they’re pretty resourceful. But without the connection I don’t really care what happened; didn’t care if they succeeded or failed in their plans. Maybe the connection would have been stronger if it was ordinary kids forced into doing something extraordinary.

Always Shine,

Starr K.

I received this complimentary galley from Netgalley. The review is not required to be a positive one, but I assure you it is my honest opinion of the book.