The Name of This Book Is Secret I give it 2 stars


The tone is second-rate Lemony Snicket, but dire Snicketian pessimism doesn’t work when the characters are jaunty and the story more or less happy. Everything dreadful happens offstage, or doesn’t happen at all. This children’s adventure could have been passable if taken straight-up as a tale of plucky kids solving ciphers and discovering an ancient mystery. Wrapped in the wrong narration, it’s not even mediocre.