A review by caseythecanadianlesbrarian
Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit, by Lilliam Rivera

3.0

A fun light middle grade mystery! It was my first introduction to Goldie Vance, but I imagine a lot of readers are familiar with the comics. I liked Goldie's personality; she was a perseverant, confident sleuth who didn't take no for an answer (but feels shy about asking her crush Diane out). Some other characters needed more fleshing out, though, and the actual mystery plot didn't start until literally halfway through which was disappointing. I was also a bit confused about what the book was doing with the setting--is it some idealized 1950/60s with no homophobia and racism? (The year isn't made clear anywhere which I guess I'd deliberate?). I would have liked it to lean into the setting more, with characters' dialogue in particular (they sound like contemporary teens). Overall though, very happy to see casual queer representation in middle grade mystery! I think I would like the comics better than this prose novel (although the finished copy--I read an ARC--is supposed to have two colour inserts with scenes as comics, so that will be really cool!).