A Book Review: The Moonstone Castle Mystery

As I've mentioned before, I'm absolutely terrible at reviewing books. Horrible. Horrendous. Incompetent. Any other synonyms you can think of.... and recently July posted a book review on her blog, www.julyaemmance.blogspot.com and it was wonderfully formatted and amazingly awesome. You can read that post here. And, with July's permission, I'm going to try to do a book review that's all structured like hers. If I haven't given July enough credit...this is the format that July used for a book review on her blog and I didn't come up with the structure; I am only trying it ouy because July said that I could. Okay, I think that's specific enough, but July, if you're reading this and you're not satisfied, just tell me what I should do to make it better.

Now. For the review. The Moonstone Castle Mystery by Carolyn Keene is a Nancy Drew book that I wouldn't normally review but I am trying to review every single book I read this year, sooo....XD


TITLE: The Moonstone Castle Mystery

AUTHOR: Carolyn Keene

GENRE: mystery, quite obviously                                               

SYNOPSIS: When Nancy Drew receives a valuable moonstone as a gift from an unknown person, she is amazed and puzzled. But it is only the first of several startling events in this complex mystery that challenge the ingenuity of the pretty sleuth. Why are the Bowens--a missionary couple who recently returned to the United States--having so much trouble finding their missing seventeen-year-old granddaughter? (from inside cover)

GOOD STUFF: You know, even with July's nice structure I still don't know what to write. Well now, Carolyn Keene does a very good job of making this book suspenseful. There are kidnappings and boat crashes and ghosts and imposters lurking around every corner, just waiting for you to turn the page so they can jump out of nowhere and surprise you. And this is probably because I'm a huge coward, but she also does a great job of making this mystery, and all her other ones at that, spooky and scary... but at the same time intriguing.

BAD STUFF: Um, well...there isn't too much to complain about, but it does end rather suddenly. About ten pages from the end I was still totally in suspense about how the complicated, flummoxing mystery would turn out and then all of a sudden BAM! everything is revealed. And it was just a tiny bit unrealistic in the beginning, but I guess Carolyn Keene had to start the book somehow.

COMMENTS: All in all a great mystery. I like how Nancy is daring and brushes off all the warnings she receives, and doesn't care when a voice with an unknown source warns her away from a supposedly haunted castle. This is one of the classic Nancy Drews, so occasionally the style of writing is a tad hard to understand, but it always makes sense if you just stop to think for a second.  This isn't educational or doesn't have some sort of message buried in the story...just a mystery, to enetertain readers, and entertain me it did.

RATING: Out of five stars, five being the best and one being the worst, I would rate this 4 stars. It isn't a bad book and nothing's really wrong with it--no inappropriate things or violence (I mean, someone was kidnapped but there's no gory descriptions, etc) but it isn't totally amazing.

RECOMMENDED READERS: Er...10 and up? There's crime in the book, so I guess young children shouldn't read it, but there's no mature content or anything.

COMPANION BOOKS: Um...the rest of the Nancy Drew series. I won't list all the titles because there are a ton.


Well, that's all! I've finished reading Much Ado About Anne and Dear Pen Pal but I didn't want to post so many MDBC (Mother-Daughter Book Club) reviews all at once so...yeah. And I've just started Beverly Cleary's memoir A Girl From Yamhill which I will certainly review as well :)

--Audrey