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Book: The Riddles of Epsilon

The Riddles of Epsilon
Christine Morton-Shaw
2005

This was an interesting book. It promised to be a book about a teenager breaking a code and solving a mystery. It sort of lived up to that. The code was really interesting and well done. I’d love to see it used for messages and stuff beyond the book as well because it was extremely clever. Instead of having one symbol to each letter, it had “i” and “e” as small sub-symbols that appeared above or below another symbol depending on their placement in the word in relation to the other letter. This was very clever and rather unique. The clues were also very interesting and very clever, for the most part. The problem arose with the main character. She was incredibly dense and never managed to put things together without an undue amount of help from the adults around her who were in on the secret. It was incredibly frustrating at times, especially given the high quality of clues and mystery pieces.

My major problem with the book was not with the plot at all, but rather with the way the main character was written. She didn’t sound like a teenager. None of the teenagers in the book sounded like teenagers. They sounded like an adult trying to sound like a teenager. They spoke the way adults hear teenagers rather than the way teenagers actually speak. They wrote out “puh-leeze!”. Teenagers may say the word that way, but they don’t hear it that way or write it that way. Only adults do. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard a teenager who said things like “bird on the wing” as a regular part of their vocabulary. The fact that the main character didn’t sound like a teenager was very frustrating to me. I know it’s an adult writing the book, but I don’t want the characters to all sound like adults unless they all are adults.

The characters generally had depth, although we didn’t always get to see it very much. I’m not sure if that was due to the author or the point of view of the teenager telling the story. The mythology of the island and the feeling of the community there were very well done. They were fun to read about, even when the main character was irritating.

I really enjoyed reading this book, but it was also very frustrating. Unless you really like clever codes and interesting mysteries involving unknown forces, there are probably lots of books you would enjoy more. I loved the code, but it wasn’t enough.