2010 March 26 » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Review: Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls by Bennett Madison

Posted by Anastasia on March 26, 2010 No Responses »

Mar 262010

69. Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls by Bennett Madison
Publication: Razorbill (May 19, 2005), Hardcover, 248pp / ISBN 1595140107
Genre: YA/Teen, Mystery
Rating:
Read: March 19, 2010
Source: BookMooch
Summary from Amazon:

Lulu Dark is the anti-Nancy—a chic, tough-talking city girl who never meant to get involved in a mystery.

But when her favorite purse is stolen during a Many Handsomes concert, Lulu knows she has to get it back. After all, it was one of a kind—and the lead singer’s phone number was stashed inside! Lulu dives deep into the fray along with her friends Daisy and Charlie, and discovers a twisted mystery involving a rock star, a rich socialite, a loony landlord, and a serious case of mistaken identity.

Review

Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls is a cute YA mystery with some interesting deviances from the more ordinary YA mysteries (cute or otherwise). It was a really quick and fun read, and it’s a great start to a series. It does have some bumps that I couldn’t ignore, unfortunately, but if you need something like Meg Cabot’s books but with a bitch for a lead character– this is a good book for that.

I call Lulu a bitch because quite frankly she is one. If this was Mean Girls she’d be Regina George, or at least Cady after she gets pulled into the MG mentality. Lulu isn’t nice to, like, anyone except her close friends and her family, and though she sort of recognizes that she’s mean she doesn’t really try to change. It comes back to bite her in the butt a few times, but there isn’t a turnaround like at the end of Mean Girls.

Anyway, I actually kind of liked the fact that Lulu was a bitch. I was really tired of nice-and-nerdy chicks starring in my lighter fiction reads, and reading about someone who can not only stand up for herself but scares other people with her fierceness and verbal vitriol was great! Not that I have anything against nice-and-nerdy girls (hi, I am one!), but I like having variety in my books.

The other characters were pretty standard, though. Think of The Princess Diaries movie– Lulu’s best girl friend is sort of like Mia (at the end of the movie, when she’s self-assured), and her best guy friend is like Michael, but a little shyer. They keep Lulu in line, a little bit, and they let her know when she’s being too MUCH of a bitch, but where they fail in personality they excel in helping solve the mystery.

The mystery– okay, here’s where one of the bumps happen. I liked the mystery right up until the end. It was creepy. It was intriguing. I wanted to know the solution! And then when I got the solution…ugh. It sucked. It made NO sense, and the way everyone treated the villain, like she was a kitten or something, when she had killed someone and stalked at least two others and did all sorts of horrible things, and yeah, she’s insane and everything, but c’mon! She’s obviously dangerous! She’s not a kitten.

Right up until that horrible ending I was really enjoying Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls, and thought the secondary characters weren’t as vibrant as Lulu was, I pretty much enjoyed reading it. I definitely want to read the next book in the series, as hopefully those things are better handled, and I love Lulu. I want to see more of her family– her dad’s gay and her mom’s a wannabe actress!– and I want to see her embrace her calling as a girl sleuth, even if she does deny being a Nancy Drew throughout the whole book.