I So Don’t Do Mysteries

Happy Lunar New Year! We are now in the Year of the Ox, and I sense a stabilising influence already.

I have not researched the significance of the Year of the Ox; the influence of which I speak is only my interpretation of information received from the telepathic highways.

A down to earth fact, however, is that Barrie Summy’s debut novel, I So Don’t Do Mysteries, is a totally fantastic read.


From the flap:

So here I am spending spring break in California with my best friend, Junie. Our chaperone is a teenager, like us. And soon I’ll get to hang out with the coolest, cutest boy in the Southwest. Life is so good.

Except I should tell you that I’m not in San Diego for fun. Even though I’m a normal person who likes normal stuff—friends, clothes, the mall—I’m supposed to be solving a mystery, one that involves a rhino heist and a crazy chief. And I have to do it because my supercop mom is counting on me. Did I mention she’s a ghost? A ghost who can make contact with only one person. Me, Sherry Holmes Baldwin. My mom is flunking out of the Academy of Spirits, and if I don’t help her, she’ll be banished to an afterlife for ghost failures.

But . . . I so don’t do mysteries.


Barrie has an energetic and catchy voice. It is infectious. And that, together with well-drawn characters, a fabulous plot, and truly great pace, kept me turning and turning the pages. Which meant I stayed awake far too late, too often!

After 30 pages, I wanted to be Sherry’s best friend. (I still do.) And here comes more praise ... I laughed out loud so many times!! This is one of the wittiest middle grade novels I've read.

I So Don’t Mysteries is fun, warm, and uplifting.

It might even have cured my cold. :)