The most unusual part of this book is the narrator, and that narrator is both the book's strength and its weakness. The unnamed narrator (presumably Psudonymous himself) is a reluctant (and compulsive) one. He knows he should not tell you the story, but the trouble is, he just can't keep a secret. Through this very obvious narrative voice, young readers can notice many literary conventions that a lot of books take for granted. The two protagonists, Cassandra and Max-Ernest (not their real names, of course) are quite well drawn, if the people surrounding their live are slightly insane. I'm thinking here of Max-Ernest's parents, who live in a house designed around the "you stay on your side, I'll stay on mine" mode of decorating, down to each of them owning half of the boy's bedroom, and also Cass's "grandfathers" who bring to mind the Collyer brothers in their hoarding of antiques. The trouble comes as the narrator's posturing becomes repetitive and rather annoying. I might have been less annoyed had I been reading the book rather than listening to it, as one can't really skim in an audiobook. Still the framed story was fun, though it was probably strong enough to stand on its own without all the secrets hoopla. David Pittu's performance of this book was delightful, from Max-Ernest's verbal diarrhea to the "recognizably unrecgonizable" accent sported by Doctor L, to the mysterious narrator himself, the voices in this production were pitch perfect.
