The Name of This Book is Secret

            The Secret books by Pseudonymous Bosh are a series of books in which the author keeps the characters names and the setting mysteriously hidden by giving them pseudonyms. The main characters, “Cass” and “Max-Ernest”, discovered a box called the Sympathy of Smells, from Cass’s grandfathers, and their journey carry from then on. They connect the box with Benjamin Blake, a missing magician, Luciano, Benjamin’s evil twin brother, and Gloria, Luciano’s partner in crime. To keep the book a mystery and on edge, Pseudonymous uses his own techniques.

            Gloria, one of the many villains, was looking for the Sympathy of Smells too, but didn’t get her hands on it fast enough. Once Cass found the box of Sympathy of Smells, she gets a note saying that Benjamin Blake is kidnaped. Being the heroic as she is, she wants to go save him. Cass’s disguise is as one of the Skeleton Sisters, a teen pop sensation, to the Midnight Spa, where Gloria works. Max-Ernest thought it was too dangerous for Cass to go alone, so he join Cass for backup and a messenger. Once they arrived, Gloria isn’t as unobservant as Cass thought, Gloria outed Cass and Max-Ernest by locking them up in a room and interrogating them. The story goes on from there that the author has not allowed me to tell you.

One of the many techniques Bosh uses is stalling. In the first two pages of the story, he asks and informs the reader that reading this book, they’re holding a great responsibility to keep the secret to themselves. Instead of jumping right into the story, Bosh gives the readers a warning, “But, remember, I warned you” (2), predicts the future, “You beg. You plead. You threaten. You cajole.”(2), and being indifferent, “Read on, if you must.”(2). For the chapter one, he didn’t write anything on the pages, except for x’s. He later on explains it “I’m sorry you couldn’t read Chapter One.”(6).

            One of his main technique he does is interjecting. He adds asterisks in the texts to distract the readers. For instance, when Max-Ernest was getting kidnapped, Bosh put many asterisks to make you look at the bottom of the page to disturb their zone into the action. He also puts an interjection chapter between suspenseful chapters. For example, when Gloria was going to reveal the secret on her youth, Pseudonymous ends the chapter when Gloria was starting to take off her gloves, as it is a part of her secret. Instead of continuing the big reveal, he writes a story dedicated to chocolate and his favorite kind.

            In conclusion, Bosh does a great job at keeping the suspense going throughout the book.