It's just as good as I remember! The Bergamo Brothers live rent free in my head. I need this as a TV show

Reminded me of the Series of Unfortunate Events. It was entertaining, but I don't think I'll worry about reading the rest of the series.

I read it at the same time as my 10.5 year old daughter. She LOVED it. I enjoyed it a lot. She is now on the third of the series. I was happy to stop after the first. Very fun read.

Very fun read. The tone of the book reminds me of Lemony Snicket - the author is constantly addressing the reader directly, begging them not to continue reading because what may happen would be horrible. I like the way the mysteries in the book play out, and I'm looking forward to reading the sequels.

I have to say I really enjoyed this book it was very well written and I loved Cass's character she is quite interesting and I love the adventure she and Max-Ernest went on I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

Great fun - a really unusual style of story telling that works very well. Aimed at the 9-11 market but because it's quite quirky I think it can be enjoyed by adults and children alike.
Looking forward to seeing what adventures are in store in book two.

Very reminiscent of Lemony Snicket books and the Mysterious Benedict Society series. What it lacked in sophistication was understandable based on the intended readers' age range. My biggest complaint is that the narrator goes on at length about how little he can reveal for the safety of reader, but the level of danger seemed underwhelming in that context. I'm not sure if I'd read more of the series, but I'd certainly give it to my kids to read (aside from wondering if I want them to read something that make a case for the necessity of lying to your parents, not that it was a huge part of the story, but still...).

this author takes the reverse psychology tactics of lemony snicket in a slightly different direction. rather than telling the reader that they do not want to read the book because the events are so sad, this author informs the reader that they really shouldn’t read the information in the book because it is too dangerous to have the knowledge. it’s actually fairly well done. it doesn’t have quite the same charm as lemony snicket (but perhaps that’s because when l.s. did it, it was a new, fresh concept) but there were some amusing bits and fun author/reader inside chat gags that i enjoyed. for example, chapter 32 is titled “the do-it-yourself-ending” and gives you options of how to write the ending of the book yourself (because “only bad books have good endings. if a book is any good, it’s ending is always bad–because you don’t want the book to end. more importantly…endings are hard to write.”) he offers several options of how to wrap up some of the characters and then offers two pages of blank lines for you to write in your ending. but then, he does do a little wrap up of his own. there are evil adults and a large dose of synesthesia and a small dose of secret codes which all make for intriguing reading. my one issue with the book is that the character max-ernest is introduced as someone who is an aspiring stand-up comic and who enjoys secret codes, but really…. he only does those things once or twice in the book. and later in the book, his proficiency at codes is a plot point, so… it would have been nice if that had been reinforced a bit more frequently. i’m not sure if a sequel could come from this but if it does… i might read it.