Wow...

Faithful readers of this blog, or even sporadic ones who are unusually lucky, may remember a post a while back during the course of which I talked about Whales On Stilts, by MT Anderson, the first of "MT Anderson's Thrilling Tales." For those who don't know, this is a juvenile fiction series (well, there's two books so far) making fun of basically all juvenile fiction series--the Hardy Boys, the Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, Goosebumps, Tom Swift, Bobsey Twins, and their ilk.

I gave a positive review of the first book in the series, because it really is very funny, especially if you're at all familiar with the aforementioned childrens' series. Well, the second book is even better. The send-up of the Hardy Boys alone makes it worth reading. But there are very occasional glimpses of the fact that MT Anderson is a very good writer. The strongest one occurs here:

She knew it was a good time not to say anything. Sometimes sadness is beyond words, because it is not an idea but a sensation, like hunger or pain.

There are other passages I would offer as proof, but they would require more explanation (yes, more than none). It was surprising to open such a seemingly inane book and find, well, truth.