Puzzled
Just the one book this week. Partly not having much weekend, partly the fact that the first two Andre Norton entries were books I already read and reviewed.
Review: Puzzleheart by Jenn Reese
Smart house stories have become a thing lately, but Puzzleheart is pure fantasy; the mechanism by which the Ecklund House becomes sentient is never fully explained and it’s a thing of clockwork and mechanics, not digits.
And it does things it was never designed to do.
This isn’t a book about puzzles, though, although puzzles matter. It’s a book about grief and depression. It’s about people giving up on the things they love, painfully so, and falling into the greyness of anhedonia.
The puzzles are a metaphor, and a suitable one for the audience.
Which is a complex way of saying that Puzzleheart is about love, its power, loneliness and the pain of moving on.
I enjoyed it. I think at the right age I might not have understood it, but would still have found it fun. The illustrations are vital, even those that don’t include parts of puzzles to solve.
I need to go find a good riddle now.
I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.