A review by forsidious
The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Very Coraline inspired so it's a fun spooky mystery. The biggest downfall of this book is that the main character, Victoria, could not be more unlikeable. I understand this is to set up for her developing more later on in the book, but it's so bad I almost DNF'd it halfway through. I only pushed through because she was compared to the bad guy, which I hoped would lead to interesting development, which to be fair it did. I feel like some of the mysteries could have been  better explained or developed towards the end, but overall it was a fun ending. The epilogue is horrific though and I wish I hadn't read it - it felt so cliche and I just groaned. The actual story's ending was good enough. Probably the best part for me was the descriptions of the environment - I think that alone would make it a very fun read aloud book.