The Wednesdays: 10/06/12

The Wednesdays is a debut middle grade fantasy by Julie Bourbeau that has a similar magic and danger as JM Barrie's Peter Pan. Max lives with family in a small village near Mount Tibidabo that is besieged by bad luck every Wednesday.

To avoid the wednesdays, the creatures believed to be the source of the bad luck, the village shuts its doors on Wednesdays. People stay in doors unless it's an absolute emergency. Max, though, on his birthday, decides he's had enough of being stuck in doors, and goes out in search of the wednesdays.

Just as Wendy's wish to meet Peter ends up being a whole lot more trouble than she had expected, Max's successful encounter with the wednesdays leaves him cursed by his own personal bad luck. A boy who can bring bad luck on any day of the week quickly becomes the town pariah.

Bourbeau keeps the problem at hand focused on Max, his bad luck and the town's on-going history with the wednesdays. By avoiding extraneous details, The Wednesdays is a magical, believable and compelling read.

Read via NetGalley

Five stars

Comments (2)

Comment #1: Sunday, October 07, 2012 at 10:03:21

Bookworm1858

I did like the tight focus on the town-it helped keep the book shorter and more manageable than if Bourbeau had created some elaborate mythology to plump up the book.

Comment #2: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at 23:21:10

Pussreboots

Exactly! I loved the focused simplicity of the book.