Marcos Carmo filho's Reviews > The Inventor's Secret

Took a couple of hours to get hooked on this. All you get for that time is a whiny, stupid protagonist (Abby) that can't stand up for herself and repeatedly acts unreasonably. For two hours, I was listening to a "slice-of-life" in a futuristic high school from the perspective of a character I wound up never caring for. Between that and the uninspired narration, I was about to return this book. After all that time, I still had no reason to care for the story.

Then the book actually started towards its main plot point, and Abby stopped whining as much. From there to the end, I found just enough to keep me reading. There were some fun moments, but those belonged to Rafael, a brazilian teacher's assistant, and Derek, Abby's twin brother.

In the end, I felt the book was too straightforward. In spite of all the odds, the immense stakes and the extremely rich, powerful and influential enemy, the only things that really stood between the characters and the conclusion were about a dozen henchmen with half a brain and Cragbridge's challenges. The only student against them only mattered for a bad night's sleep and a couple of blushing moments at the beginning of the book, then she disappeared. It felt like the villain barely even tried to win, or, more practically speaking, the author was trying to keep his own job of concluding the book simple.

I won't say I regret listening to the book, but I didn't get much out of it. Since I already got through the first book, I might give the sequel a go on account of it supposedly being centered around the avatars, but not anytime soon.