Review: I am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley

Title: I am Half-Sick of Shadows
Author: Bradley, Alan
Length: 288 pages
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher / Year: Doubleday Canada / 2011
Source: From my parents for Christmas
Rating: 4/5
Why I Read It: I’ve been working my way through the series.
Date Read: 26/12/11

I reviewed the third in this series late in 2010. In that review I spoke a lot about the classism and racism that I saw in the series. After reading this book I would say that the issues still persist, but re-iterate that for me at least, just having the chance to talk them out is all that I needed. The books are set in an earlier time during which class prejudices were a bit more ingrained, and Flavia herself is so precocious as to really force them to be visible. While the issues are there and should be noted, I feel, I do think they are done in such a way that they work without reinforcing current classism.

This fourth instalment in the series is set over the holiday period when Buckshaw is taken over by a host of people as part of a film shooting. The de Luce family is still struggling with money and so have hired the place out to be the setting of a film. The sisters all have their own ideas, and Flavia of course sets herself in the middle of things as usual. As a side-story, Flavia is convinced that she can complete an experiment to capture Father Christmas, proving that he does in fact exist.

Again I have to point out how much I love the way sisterhood and the sisters are portrayed. I enjoy the ‘types’ each of the de Luce sisters portray and how these stereotypes play out through the book, but yet how Bradley can paint the characters as rounded despite that. Flavia is a science nerd and also shows the insecurities of her age, the middle sister Daphne is a reader and is constantly immersed in books, Ophelia, the eldest, is both overly confident and a typical pretty girl who cares only about her appearance. Although Flavia is the star of the show and focus of these books (and the most well-written of the characters, the others can seem flat by times), I can’t help but loving Daphne, myself, for obvious reasons. As she says on page 189:

“Books are like oxygen to a deep-sea diver [...] take them away and you might as well begin counting the bubbles.”

Again recommended to lovers of light mysteries and kick-ass heroines.