Review

Morrigan is a registered cursed child – everything that goes wrong anywhere near her is blamed on her. She’s fated to die, like all cursed children, on her twelfth birthday, when the new age begins. Her cold, politician father can’t wait to get rid of her. Her vain, superficial stepmother will definitely not care.

But then, the new age arrives a year early. Morrigan, who’s received a few offers of education & employment, including one from the mysterious Mr Jones, knows that her life is over at the age of eleven. But, on the night of her birthday, Morrigan is rescued from a terrifying hunting pack of ghostly horses and hounds by ginger-haired, adventurous Jupiter North, who whisks her off to Nevermoor, a magical land, where she lives a much more enjoyable existence with a found family.

However, she is an illegal immigrant… so she can only stay if she’s chosen to join the Wundrous Society, a highly competitive organisation. Morrigan has to undergo four, difficult trials, competing against hundreds of other children for nine spots. And they all have knacks, special talents. She doesn’t.

Meanwhile, mysterious things keep going wrong in Nevermoor. Has Morrigan’s curse followed her here?

*

Okay, this is great. So fun, and I completely regret not reading it earlier. It’s billed as a cross between Harry Potter and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, to which I would add Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because Jupiter gives me 100% Willy Wonka vibes. This book is the perfect blend of funny, scary, fantastical and absurd. Townsend writes well, and her humour is on point. Also, she doesn’t write down to her audience, plus she keeps the reader fed with yummy food descriptions. All of these are crucial for a proper children’s book.

Adult readers will see the big reveal coming, but it’s no less the entertaining for that. If you are a child 9+ or an adult with a love for children’s literature, pick this one up. I know it’s not the most recent book, but, hey, better late than never.

Some quotes…

Dinner was Morrigan’s favourite – lamb chops, roast parsnips and minted peas.

Er… yes, please! Bring me all of these things!

Through the sparse woodland and over the crest of the hill, a dark and shapeless form approached Crow Manor.

To Morrigan it looked like a swarm of locusts or a cloud of bats, but it was too low and loud to be either. The sound of hooves became deafening as the dark mass grew closer. Amongst the black were hundreds of specks of fiery red light, getting brighter by the second.

The amorphous figure began to take shape. Heads and faces and legs grew out of the swarm, and Morrigan felt her stomach drop; the glowing red lights weren’t lights at all. They were eyes. The eyes of me, the eyes of horses and the eyes of hounds.

Good quality scares here.

‘I didn’t park close enough,’ said Jupiter. ‘We’ll have to push off a bit when we jump.’

Jump? Surely he didn’t expect her to jump out of a third-storey window?

BIG Wonka energy from Jupiter.

‘The first bit’s always bumpy. And the last bit. But don’t worry; the middle bit’s as smooth as silk. Sometimes. Depends, really.’

More Wonka here.

Morrigan held her breath as Jupiter fumbled through different compartments on the control deck, finally producing an empty chocolate bar wrapper and a used tissue. Smiling placidly at Morrigan, he pressed them up against the glass for the giant eye to examine. Like an actual madman.

The moment stretched out in silence, and Morrigan braced herself for sirens, klaxons, armed guard breaking down the arachnipod’s doors…

The microphone crackled and buzzed. The voice on the other end heaved a long-suffering sigh and whispered, ‘Honestly, you’re not even trying…’

‘Sorry, it’s all I could find!’ whispered Jupiter in return, looking into the giant eye and shrugging contritely.

Finally, the voice boomed, ‘You may proceed.’

‘Marvellous,’ said Jupiter, strapping himself into the old leather seat again. Morrigan let out the breath she’d been holding. ‘Cheers, Phil.’

And more Wonka.

The boy landed with a thud next to Morrigan. He flicked his head back, pushing a mop of thick brown curls out of his eyes, and adjusted his oversized jumper – a huge blue knitted thing with a glittery cat picture on the front. The cat had a pink ribbon sewn onto its head and a jingling silver bell attached to the collar. Morrigan wondered what in the world had possessed him to wear it.

…

‘D’you like it?’ he said, looking down at his chest. ‘My mum bet me I wouldn’t wear it today. She bought it from a catalogue. She gets loads of them for me, it’s called the Ugly Jumper Company. She’s pretty funny.’

‘What do you get?’

‘For what?’

‘For winning the bet?’

‘I get to wear the jumper.’ He frowned, looking genuinely confused for a moment until his face lit up with some new idea. ‘Hey – could you help me with something?’

Funny, love the way it’s not laboured.

In short: read this book. It’s great.

*

Images and quotes are used on this blog post under the “Fair dealing for criticism or review” provision of the Commonwealth Copyright Act, 1968.