The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

Reviewed by Jennifer

Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES


Ratings Explanation

Language: A few instances of hell and damn and several instances of profanity. I have given this a 3 in language because the reading level is ages 9-12. There are about 15 combined instances, but I have a 9-year-old, and the language is not age appropriate for him.

Sexual Content: Kissing with tongues is mentioned.

Adult Themes: Teens lie to their parents. A teenage girl and her mother have a fight and the mother almost slaps her. It is upsetting for both of them. A boy planned to run away. When he is missing, Kat wonders if he has been kidnapped for sex.

Synopsis

Things that go up must come down, right? Not in the case of a boy who goes missing in London.

When Selim gets on the London Eye, a huge observation wheel, Ted and Kat watch him get in the pod. But when his pod comes back down, Selim is not in it. How could a boy disappear from a sealed pod? In this story in which things are not always what they seem, Ted, a bright young man with Asperger syndrome, and his sister Kat, who mostly thinks her brother Ted is a pain, work together to solve the mystery and become friends in the process.

A fun mystery I would gladly recommend to my 9-year-old son, except for the language. There isn’t a huge volume of language, but enough that I can’t recommend it to someone that young. But as far as the story goes, it was fun to figure out this fast-paced mystery along with Ted and Kat. Ted has a clever way of articulating things he notices, like a comment about his cousin Selim. He “looked like his thoughts were not in the same place as his body.” An extra bonus to the mystery is the way a family comes together in a crisis.