Kate Racculia

How much fun was this book? I had a blast reading it; there are very pale shades of Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookshop to it, although it's an entirely different beast. Scavenger hunts! Unsolved mysteries! Lost fortunes! Secret codes!

Enough exclamation points - it was a thoroughly enjoyable adventure with an engaging cast of characters and the closest to unreliable narrators (not really) that I can come without hating a book. The narrator is reliable, but so much of the information she gets is show more not. There are stories within stories and games within games and the author does a phenomenal job putting it all together in a way that doesn't leave the reader behind. Racculia also scores points for combining brutal violence, a happy ending, and poetic justice in a way that I was willing to buy without a blink.

There was only 1 thing that left me hanging - a very minor plot point that was never addressed:

[spoiler]There's a letter sent by the deceased, shown to the reader exactly as it looks with the caveat that his typewriter was old and inconsistent. But it wasn't - there was a code "Tell your mother I love her". But the coded message is never brought up, and it's never mentioned. It's like it wasn't there, but it was and it's killing me.[/spoiler]

This is the kind of book you pick up when you just want to surrender a few hours to having an adventurous good time. show less

A rich, eccentric old Bostonian dies and leaves his fortune and collection of bizarre objects to anyone who can follow the clues he left around the city. Tuesday Mooney, black-clad introvert, loves a good puzzle, but to solve this one she'll need help from her friend Dex (whom she's always kept at arm's length), her tween next-door neighbor Dorry, and a handsome mysterious millionaire. Wait, why would a millionaire care about inheriting a fortune?

I'm not sure what to say about this book show more except that it hits me in exactly the right spot. The characters are complicated and relatable, and the plot is fun. Very Boston-y. The plot twists are twisty. And there are real consequences for the stupid things people do in the name of figuring out the mystery! What more could you want? show less

Tuesday Mooney has always been a bit odd and, ever since her best friend disappeared back in high school, keeps everyone at arm's length. At one of the fundraisers she was working with, an old eccentric rich man dies, and then leaves behind a treasure hunt that he announces in his obituary. Deciding to try her hand, Tuesday finds possible allies in Archie, a rich young man she meets at the fundraiser, Dex, who's been her somewhat distanced friend for awhile, and Dorry, her teenage next door show more neighbor. But all of the players have a motive of their own and secrets they keep from each other while working on the puzzle.

This was so much fun to read! I enjoyed the setting of Boston, the quirky characters, and the way the plot unfolded as they attempted to solve the puzzle. There were enough solid, grounding details that I could accept some of the more fanciful elements, including a ghost who may or may not be talking to Tuesday throughout. The puzzle and general plot kept me guessing, and the solution was satisfying. show less

When Tuesday Mooney was sixteen, her best friend Abby Hobbes disappeared, and her voice has lived in Tuesday's head, on and off, ever since. But Tuesday has her shit together: she lives in Somerville and works in Boston and works for a hospital, researching potential financial donors. Her life gets a lot more interesting when Vincent Pryce dies, dramatically, at a fundraiser, and leaves behind, in his own obituary, a puzzle for anyone to solve. Tuesday, of course, is on the case, along with show more her friend Dex, and her teenage neighbor Dorry ("Next Dorry"), who wants to win for her own reasons after reading about Pryce's collection of haunted odds and ends: she wants a pair of goggles that will allow her to see the ghost of her mother. At the center of Pryce's game is the Arches family: disappeared patriarch, eldest son Nathaniel, wife Constance, daughter Emerson, and disappeared-reappeared youngest son, Edgar (Archie), who teams up with Tuesday for his own reasons.

TUESDAY MOONEY TALKS TO GHOSTS abounds with clues to its high-stakes treasure hunt. Threaded through Pryce's game is the question: what is money really for? And what, in the right hands, can it do? Tuesday, Dorry, Dex, and Archie are all richly developed characters. Most characters are white, except Dorry (half-Chinese, half-Jewish, her friend Ned Kennedy, and Pryce's widow Lyle.

See also: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, In the Woods by Tana French, Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey, Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde

Quotes

It's easier to notice what's important when you're outside looking in. (12)

Her adult life had turned out to be a series of patterns and routines. (48)

It was a life without an organizing hunger, and it was slightly surprising...that the reward for achieving one's goals wasn't total satisfaction. (50)

Elision was the best kind of lying. You didn't even have to lie, just selectively tell. (86)

"Money has meaning when you put it to work." (Pryce, 134)

[Dorry] was half frustrated, half excited, half nervous, half elated. She was too many halves. She was twice as much as she usually was. (179)

"I've learned to embrace the mysterious. Because the strange, the extraordinary - those experiences that make you look at the world like you've never seen it before, really pay attention to it - the strange changes you. Shows you new things about yourself. About life. Other people." (Rabbit to Tuesday, 231)

What had seemed boring once had become infinitely interesting, essential even, now that it was gone. (240)

"Vince loved games. And he thought too many people had forgotten how to play. They'd been brainwashed into thinking the entire point of playing a game - or working or living or doing anything - is to win." (Lyle, 290)

If she looked cool, it was because cool was the only costume she had in her closet. (291)

"Be generous. And be generous now, because the future isn't a destination. It's an extension of how we choose to live today." (Tuesday's interpretation of Pryce's intentions, 292)

And a living wasn't something you made but something you did. Again and again, over and over, always, always becoming. (Dex, 324)

"To anonymously donate money. Like...angel investing. Crossed with microfinancing. Crossed with...MacArthur fellowships?" (Tuesday to Lyle, 354)

"Was all of this a job interview?"
"Is anything...ever only one thing?" (Tuesday and Lyle, 356) show less