Review: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry

The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ransom Riggs is baaaaaaaaaaack! And I am 100% all in for this.

Like Miss Peregrine before it, this latest series opener from one of the best authors in the YA business follows a boy whose family trauma has shaped him into a depressed young man who doesn’t think he stands a chance in the world. But that’s because the world doesn’t respect him like he deserves, except for his buddy with the strange taste in smokables. (I told my buddy Koda that Emmet resembled him a lot in that respect, but funnily enough, Leopold bears a stronger physical resemblance to Kodes, being six foot plus and lean and rangy.)

This book comes with a pretty retro package and a premise that calls to mind the recent indie film success I Saw the TV Glow, though decidedly from a heterosexual and cisgender perspective, and with more focus on salvaging lost family secrets. But it also functions as an effective allegory for the real world troubles plaguing California, especially LA. The parallel universe of Sunderworld ain’t just a lost 90s show where you gotta Keep Circulating the Tapes - it’s a real place of magic focusing camera lenses, a populace begging for a savior and then making memes out of him when he flops on live TV, magic as a natural resource that used to be in great supply but is now running dangerously low (reminiscent of not only the oil that made LA a big boomtown in the 20th century, but also the water which California never has enough of because the state is slowly turning into a great desert)…

There’s just so much awesomeness in this book, and it wouldn’t be Riggs without a weapons grade cliffhanger that sneaks up with lightning speed and smacks the reader in the face.

I do have to say, though…Richter. Can. CHOKE.

Because if Leopold were my kid, I’d be proud that he can repair his own car and drive stick, and maybe that encouragement would help him come out of his shell sooner.

(And one more thing - did Riggs give Leopold a yellow Volvo wagon as an homage to the Maitlands’ car in Beetlejuice? With the new movie coming out, I’m inclined to think so.)

View all my reviews