Title: Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy

Author: Karen Foxlee

Genre: Children, Fantasy

Published: January 28, 2014

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ophelia's father took her and her sister Alice to a museum where he had been given a job to put together a sword display for a big celebration which was going to take place on Christmas. Ophelia ended up finding a boy locked in a room, who had an improbable story and would send her on different missions with the end goal being to save the world.

The story was engaging and most of the characters were likable and quirky. It had everything from snow leopards to ghosts, doll houses to great carnivorous birds, dinosaurs to sword fights. The book was one adventure after another for Ophelia.

I was reminded of the old fairy tales we are all familiar with, but if you think about the words and what is happening in them too much you realize they are really gruesome. One example Hansel and Gretel. A witch is going to fatten them up so she can eat them. As an audience we are kept moving from one scene to the next with little thought and little description of what will happen if the Queen wins. The only real detail we are given is the world will end. That could mean many different things, so it wasn't something we needed to worry about too much.

There is one thing that really bugged me. Throughout the entire book Ophelia was trying to figure out a specific mystery. That was fine, but we are never given the answer. They couldn't just have that be the last line or something?

Overall I gave this book 4 stars out of 5.