In this sweeping and inventive debut novel that’s perfect for fans of Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton, a prodigal inventor flees his home to find his destiny.
In the humdrum town of Moormouth, Walter Mortinson’s unusual inventions cause nothing but trouble. After one of his contraptions throws the town into chaos, Walter’s mother demands he cut the nonsense and join the family mortuary business.
Far off on Flaster Isle, famed inventor Horace Flasterborn plans to take Walter under his wing, just as he did Walter’s genius father decades ago. When a letter arrives by unusual means offering Walter an apprenticeship, it isn’t long before Walter decides to flee Moormouth to achieve his destiny.
Walter runs away in the family hearse along with Cordelia, the moody girl next door with one eye and plenty of secrets. Together they journey through a strange landscape of fish-people, giantess miners, and hypnotized honeybees in an adventure that will not only reveal the truth about Walter’s past, but direct his future.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book. From the synopsis, I mainly expected a fun middle-grade book, and I did get that, but there was so much more to unpack from this novel.
This book, unsurprisingly, is mainly about a young boy named Walter Mortinson. Walter loves to invent odd things, but in the town of Moormouth, people are meant to work in tedium and kids are not supposed to have an imagination or to know things. Walter's mother thinks that he needs to stop inventing, as it will only lead to trouble, and join the family mortuary business. After an escalated argument, Walter finds a letter in the trash addressed to him from Flasterborn, the famed inventor. Flasterborn wants Walter as an apprentice, so Walter sneaks off into the night, taking Cordelia (a classmate who was once a friend long ago). They travel through odd towns, mirroring the adventure Walter's own parents took on the way to Moormouth fourteen years before.
I'll admit that it took me a bit to get into this book. Sosna-Spear carefully describes all of the settings and every character, even the smallest ones. At first, I did not see the purpose in this because these details would interrupt the story and some of these characters would never be heard from again. I would take breaks from this book and it was seeming to be a three-star read. Then, after a bit of a break from this book, I picked it up again and...I began to notice more purpose to all of these details. I liked learning everyone's hopes and fears and I was less bothered by interruptions from the past.
I mentioned this briefly in my little run-down, but throughout Walter's adventure, we also get chapters that take place fourteen years before as Walter's parents take the same route (although they took the route the other way around, so their story is backwards). I loved seeing all of the odd settings that the characters came across and there was so much imagination involved in creating these settings (which makes sense as imagination is a huge part of this book). They can be strange and feel random, but the way they are described makes them purposeful and it is just fun to see how each town differs in its way of thinking. I wish that more time could be spent in each town then there was. In truth, I feel like at times we didn't get to stay in a moment long enough. I'm not sure how I feel about that because I'm glad that the book is not talking down to readers by overly explaining what things mean or what happened, that is up to the reader's discretion. s to decide.
While the settings are a huge part of this book, the characters are the biggest part. I mean, Walter is in the title. The entire book we see these interesting things, but they are nothing without seeing how the characters react to what is around them. I mentioned how each character is shown in careful detail what their hopes and fears are. Well, with the main characters, we are shown that not everything is simple. With each odd encounter, we learn more and more about the main characters (Walter, Cordelia, and Hadorah, who is Walter's mother). It's interesting that so much attention is given to Hadorah, the main adult in the story. You really want to hate her in the beginning because she seems to be trying to squash Walter's imagination, but there is so much more at work in the story. Because there is a mix of past and present, we also see how much the past is affecting the characters, but we don't fully understand it until we near the end of the story.
Now, the ending of this book is a five-star ending. The ending of this book was absolutely fantastic, even though it broke my heart. In fact, once I got to the last one hundred or so pages of this book, you could not tear me away. This part of the book made me feel so many things and everything was coming together in a way I did not expect nor want to happen, but I felt like there was just so much said in the last portion of the book. Right now I'm struggling to even type out how the ending of this book made me feel because the best way to see that is just by reading this book.
IN CONCLUSION
Overall, this is a fantastic book. There is just so much in this book about imagination, family, friends, and there is just so much creativity. If it weren't for my earlier struggle, this book would be five-stars, but who knows. Maybe I'll reread this someday and up my rating. I do recommend this book and I hope this book gets the attention it deserves. I noticed that Quinn Sosna-Spear has another book coming up, The Thirteenth Hour, and you bet I'm going to read that one when it comes out.
I hereby give this book
4 Stars!
Meaning: I really liked this book!
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