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Loading... Alex and the Ironic Gentlemanby Adrienne Kress
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This book was awesome!! It's about a girl who is an orphan living with her uncle, whose teacher is heir to a pirate fortune. The teacher gets kidnapped by other pirates who want the treasure for themselves, and Alex (who is actually a girl) goes to rescue him. The journey to rescue her teacher is completely, hilariously insane, from the octopus who wants to be an actor to the talking fridge who helps Alex make scones. This story is genius. (  )jfoster_sf | Mar 10, 2009 |  1   Lady Wombat says: My daughter read this with her dad, then asked me to read it to her so I would know what it was about. There was a lot to like about the book, particularly the voice of the intrusive narrator and the character of Alex. I felt, though, that Kress wasn't that familiar with genre conventions, for she mixed elements from lighthearted adventure, spooky/creepy fantasy (a la Neil Gaiman/CORALINE), horror, and realism together without regard for the way that these different genres set different expectations for their readers. I like it when authors break conventions, but only when they KNOW they are breaking them, and are breaking them for a reason. In this book, it just felt like Kress didn't know any better, didn't know how one genre's conventions are often at odds with another's... The peripatetic plot also left me confused -- the opening so clearly promises a pirate adventure story, but doesn't deliver it until the final quarter of the book. In between Alex slips into fantasy spaces -- a train where people gradually disappear, a movie set with a talking star octopus, a hotel with no guests -- each fascinating, but with no real connection to the main pirate plot. An author worth watching... Wombat | Oct 28, 2008 | 1 Alex, who lives with her uncle in the flat above their doorknob shop, meets her new teacher, Mr. Underwood, a descendant of a famous pirate, and soon three vicious men turn up in town, looking for a map to a fabled family treasure. prkcs | Feb 25, 2008 | allisonmariecat | Jan 25, 2008 | http://lampbane.livejournal.com/443459.html "If Alex and the Ironic Gentleman is emulating anything, it's the work of Lemony Snicket. The world is a quirky, contemporary mash-up, where the world itself isn't outrageous, but is filled with rather strange and silly people doing unbelievable things. And adults being utter asshats." (  )lampbane | Aug 6, 2007 | 0.033 seconds to build listing
Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 160286005X, Hardcover)Fans of Lemony Snicket, Harriet the Spy, and Alice in Wonderland will love this witty, magical fantasy and its unforgettable tomboy heroine.A smart, funny mixture of fantasy and high adventure, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman tells the story of Alex Morningside, an inquisitive ten-and-a-half-year-old girl who lives with her uncle above a doorknob shop. A student at the prestigious Wigpowder-Steele Academy, Alex is often mistaken for a boy because of her bowl haircut, but that's okay -- she has an excellent sense of humor. Alex hates Wigpowder-Steele because as much as she enjoys learning, she doesn't enjoy wearing a uniform with a skirt. She also doesn't enjoy her teachers, who are all very old and smell funny and don't seem to know about any of the developments that have happened in the world in the last thirty years. And she most definitely does not enjoy her peers, who are quite simply ridiculous. However, that's okay, too, because her peers don't enjoy her much either. Luckily for Alex, the new school year brings an exciting new teacher. Mr. Underwood makes lessons fun and teaches her how to fence. But Mr. Underwood has a mysterious family secret -- the swashbuckling and buried treasure kind -- and not everyone is glad he has come to Wigpowder-Steele. When the pirates of a ship called The Ironic Gentleman kidnap her beloved teacher, Alex sets off on a through-the-looking-glass journey to rescue him, along the way encountering a steady stream of hilarious and colorful characters, including one Captain Magnanimous, Coriander the Conjurer, and the Extremely Ginormous Octopus. Funny, charming, and ultimately tender, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman ends with a twist that readers will find as heartwarming as it is surprising. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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