The Mysterious Benedict Society
by Trenton Lee Stewart
Summer 2017
The Mysterious Benedict Society was another recommendation from my teenage brother. He consistently gets me hooked on series, and this is yet another start to a series. I was very excited to start this book, but found myself stalling about a third of the way through. It wasn’t boring, but there was nothing super gripping. I kept plugging away and about halfway through there was an amazing twist which got me totally sucked in for the remainder of the book. Surprise, surprise, I’ll be continuing to read the series!
The Mysterious Benedict Society follows the life of young orphan, Reynie. Reynie is quite bright and gets an opportunity to go to a specialized school if he can pass a series of tests. The tests are unusual and seem strangely easy for Reynie, who passes one after another. Two other children pass as well: Sticky and Kate. At the end of the final test, they meet their benefactor: Mr. Benedict, and get some answers. The school he wants to send them to is actually the front for an evil man who is trying to take over the world. Mr. Benedict needs clever children to attend as undercover agents in order to learn the full plot. Reynie, Sticky and Kate will team up with one other remarkably small child, Constance. Spoilers: they successfully infiltrate the school by performing well in their classes and impressing the director, Mr. Curtain. They ultimately determine that Mr. Curtain is Mr. Benedict’s twin and is trying to take over the world through radio signals carrying hidden messages. He has the ability to wipe memories as well and has done so with former agents so that they cannot expose him. Mr. Curtain has a machine that sends all the radio messages out. He sits on one side and thinks his obscure phrases that then a child sitting on the other side repeats (a child’s mind is the only way to get the messages broadcast). They know they need to destroy the machine and figure out how to have the memories returned. In the end, Constance (who is unbelievably stubborn because it turns out she is a toddler) sits in the machine and refuses to comply with Mr. Curtain’s thoughts and thereby breaks the machine. Mr. Curtain escapes, but they have enough evidence to pursue him and convince authorities of the plot. The children also find out that the memories can be coaxed back and Mr. Benedict has figured out how to do that. There is a very happy ending as one of the agents remembers his past and it turns out that he is Kate’s dad who has been missing. Sticky gets reunited with his parents who have been distraught over his disappearance (he left after a misunderstanding). Reynie realizes that their work is far from over (since, Mr. Curtain escaped), but they enjoy a few moments of happiness before this sinks in.
Summing it up: While this took me a little bit to get into, in the end, I really enjoyed the twist, the characters and the book! I definitely recommend it.
All the best, Abbey
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