FINISHED:
Delaney, Rachelle. (2017). The Bonaventure Adventures. New York: Penguin Random House.

[Clumsy and untalented twelve year-old Sebastian (Seb), worried that he will never be a circus performer and, thus, is a disappointment to his father who is ringmaster of the Konstantinov Family Circus (currently traveling around Eastern Europe), enrolls in the Bonaventure Circus School in Montreal in an effort to learn to modernize the circus and help to save it from financial ruin.  As classes begin, Seb struggles to fit in without having any acrobatic acuity, but finds kinship in two other students (Frankie, a girl from Italy who is into parkour; and Banjo, a boy who is constantly late to class because he has no sense of direction) who have been labeled Bêtes Noires by the headmistress, and discovers a talent for writing stories.  Most of the humor comes from Seb having to keep up appearances by doing anything that he can to get out of having to do any acrobatics at school, ultimately telling everyone that his is a fire breather, knowing that no one will ask him to prove it, and stringing the headmistress along who admitted Seb to the ailing school because she assumes that Seb must be talented and wealthy because he’s a Konstantinov.  Beyond the reassuring message that everyone has their talent(s) and that you just have to put some work toward finding out what that may be, this is a pretty standard tale that is light on world building and character development, skipping forward in time at whim, with an abrupt ending where Seb and the other Bêtes Noires predictably end up saving the day.]

STARTED:
Ruby, Laura. (2017). The Shadow Cipher [York: Book 1]. New York: Walden Pond/HarperCollins.

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