Wow! This book definitely wins the Darkness and Doom Award over all the other books I’ve read for the Cybils Science Fiction and Fantasy category so far. In fact, I can’t imagine a much darker bit of middle grade fantasy, unless it was one that chose to forego the conventional happy ending. If you’re going to check out Sinister Sweetness, I’m giving you the comfort going in of knowing that the book does have a happy ending. Otherwise, you might drown in all the darkness before you got there.

Lots of books these days, and a few TV shows, are riffs on traditional fairy tales. However, not too many books choose to take the story of Hansel and Gretel as a starting point. The whole “witch cooking children in an oven and eating them” is a sort of gruesome for a children’s book. Sinister Academy, however, rushes in where others fear to tread.

When Lorelei’s old school burns down and a sparkling new charter school appears near her home practically overnight, Lorelei is excited to enroll in Splendid Academy, especially since the principal, Mrs. Trapp, is so very understanding, and the school itself has very few rules and lots and lots of candy and other great food. It’s an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of kid-friendly treats every day at Splendid Academy, and only Lorelei and her new friend Andrew seem to have any suspicions that all may not be exactly as it seems at the wonderful Splendid Academy.

I read this book during breaks while I was judging a debate tournament, and that setting may have made the story feel even more sinister than it is. Or maybe it’s just that ghastly and monstrous. The teachers at Splendid Academy are the stuff of nightmares. I did think it was odd that Lorelei didn’t figure out what was going on at her new school more readily and that she didn’t run away from home as soon as she did figure it out. No, she just keeps going back to school every day, just like those people in the horror movie who open the door or go around the corner when the sinister music is playing or who enter the haunted house or tell everybody else to leave, “I’ll be just fine alone.” Nobody in the real world would return to Splendid Academy just as no one would ever stick around after the first few notes of that creepy movie music that tells you something really bad is about to happen.

Lorelei also has “it’s my fault my parent died of cancer” syndrome, a problem with which many children in middle grade fiction seem to be afflicted (cp. What Came from the Stars by Gary Schmidt, A Monster Calls by Partrick Ness, etc.) I’m not making light of the false guilt children sometimes feel when a parent dies or when parents divorce, but this unresolved guilt trope does seem to come up in fiction for middle graders over and over again. If you’re wondering, that part ends well, too.

Sinister Sweetness is for children who like grim and macabre, with a side dish of witches practicing cannibalism. It certainly doesn’t glorify or normalize Evil.

Island of Silence is Book 2 in The Unwanteds series, and it suffered in my reading from my not having read the first book. I couldn’t really tell if the characters were poorly developed, or if I just missed the development. I tried to give the book the benefit of the doubt, but I would suggest that you start with Book 1 if you want to check this series out.

In Island of Silence, Quill and Artime are neighboring countries that are recovering from a recent war between the two. The magical barrier between the two countries is now gone. The artistic warriors of Artime struggle to forgive the citizens of Quill who sent them to their deaths and to take in refugees from grey, colorless Quill. The people still in Quill struggle to recover from their defeat in the war and the loss of their slaves, the Necessaries, and to understand what to do about the collapse of their safe and orderly society (based on slave labor). Alex Stowe, our protagonist, muddles through the book, trying to figure out his place in all of this post-war rebuilding and rejects the idea that he could be a leader in the new Artime. Then, a crisis gives Alex no choice but to confront his own insecurities and the schemes of his twin brother in Quill, Aaron, who is determined to return to power using any means necessary, even magic.

Here’s Alice at Supratentorial reviewing the first book, The Unwanteds, which, by the way, was a favorite with her nine year old son. So the series definitely has some things going for it. The blurb on the front is “The Hunger Games Meets Harry Potter“(not much Hunger Games, lots of Harry Potter). Creativity and artistic ability are valued in this world (well, eventually). The plot is exciting and well-paced. Book Two is all about the hard work of making peace between historic enemies.

However, just as Alice did with the first book in the series, I had questions after I finished reading Island of Silence, not about what’s going to happen next (the series is obviously unfinished at the end of Book 2), but about what in cat-hair was going on in Book 2.
Why does Mr. Today seem so ineffectual when he’s supposed to be the creator and sustainer of the country of Artime?
Why isn’t anyone keeping an eye on Aaron if he was so evil in the first book?
Why won’t the Wanteds do anything to get their own food if they’re starving? How do the Unwanted get fed? By magic? No one seems to do much in the way of work in this book.
What’s with the lack of water in both Quill and Artime? Why? It rains, doesn’t it? (Maybe this problem was explained in Book 1?)
Why do the Necessaries go back to Quill where they were slaves?
Why is Aaron so bad, and Alex so humble and good? Why do they make such diametrically opposed choices?
Why does Mr. Today choose Alex to be his successor?

Lots more questions, but you get the idea. I’m going to go with neutral as far as a recommendation on this one. If you decide to try it, start at the beginning, and then come back and let me know if I should start all over myself and read it the right way. Maybe it would work better that way.