"Greenglass House" by Kate Milford

This book was said to resemble Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game. It does, kind of, in that everyone has their own story. There's an overarching plot to Greenglass House, but it spins lots of little sidetracks too. Aside from Milo (the main character) and his parents, nobody is who they seem to be. Well, there are a couple of minor characters who don't really have any secrets, because they're minor characters. But everyone else? Nope, no one is telling you everything. No one.

 

I'm not going to spoil any of the secrets for you. At least two of them surprised me a great deal, especially the one where |haha just kidding I'm sticking to my word|.

Milo and Meddy (the daughter of one of those sans-secret characters) try to figure out the mysteries. While doing this, they come up with characters for a roleplaying game, Odd Trails, which is clearly supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons but for trademark infringement yada yada. Also, it allows the author to come up with various mechanics and things for Odd Trails that aren't in D&D. Their roleplaying as Negret (Milo's sneaky thief-person character) and Sirin (Meddy's invisible angel-thing character) is fun to read about.

Part of my enjoyment of this book stems from the fact that I think I'd have gotten along fairly well with Meddy. That, or terribly; we're too similar to just kind of peripherally know each other. Milo is too quiet for me, in my old age, to interact much with.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: Um... E10+ for some violence (someone |uses a gun to shoot at a character|, but misses.) Something like this, yes.

And it gets 4 stars. It was fun, and I liked it, but it's not a book I'd want to buy and reread a lot. (I should really read some worse books so I don't rate everything four stars all the time.)

Favorite lines:

    [The footsteps] had been too noisy for someone who knew how to move silently, but not noisy enough for someone coming up without caring about sounds they were making at all. Therefore, the person who'd arrived on the fifth floor was trying to be quiet, and wasn't doing it very well.

    Page 76.

    The Moonlighter's Knack, he thought triumphantly: you can steal any object protected by anything that opens with a key or combination, and also anything protected by hotel toiletries.

    Page 156.

(Endnote: I think this is the first book I've reviewed on here since the 2021 revamp whose author's last name starts with M.)