A hilarious, laugh-out loud book about a cruise, a mystery, murder, and bingo!

Our MC, Jesse, was such a great character. Though I did feel for him. His parents are considering D.I.V.O.R.C.E and are planning on using the time that Jesse is away to talk about things together. I can imagine that it was so much stress for him and that he was just worried. I am glad that the cruise at least gave him so distractions to not think about it constantly. He was a really sweet boy and I liked how he became friends with someone despite normally not befriending that kind of person. I loved seeing him dive into the mystery, help out his grandpa, find out that grandpa’s stories were actually real and not fake (which must be a shocker as he (and everyone else in the family) thought grandpa was just a carpet-seller).

The mystery was wonderful! I was constantly thinking I may just have the clue, the idea of what was going on, but then there would be something happening that made me doubt it all. Eventually I had a few suspects and could get it down to two. I won’t tell you which two because that may be a spoiler. I loved meeting all the bad villains and other peeps from grandpa’s past.

The cruise was just such a delight. I always have been hoping to one day go on a cruise. Sadly, no money for that and given how bad those things are for the climate I will probably never have enough before they disappear. Thankfully, there are plenty of books about cruises and this is one of them! OK, it may not be my kind of cruise, given the age everyone is there, but there were still plenty of things that were fun. Like where the cruise was going. The dinners. I would even participate in the bingo! Haha, not something I would do daily like some of these older folks do, but occasionally bingo can be very fun.

I loved figuring out what was going on with grandpa. At one point I had a clear idea what was going on and I was hoping that our MC would either find out or that grandpa would be honest about it. I could imagine that he didn’t want to say it just yet. That makes it even more real and I can imagine you don’t want this to be a reality. Not after all you did and experienced in your life. I did love how our MC tried his best to help his grandpa and even later did something very sweet.

I did think it was weird that it wasn’t our MC’s trunks being stolen. The cover and the title make it seem that way… however that is not true at all. In fact it is his friend’s Peppa Pig Trunks that gets stolen early in the book!

Oh, and at times it just felt like the only ones on the cruise were the group we keep on hearing about. There were a few mentions that there were more people aboard, which always surprised me.

The illustrations were fantastic and made the book even more fun to read (and funnier, that as well).

All in all, I am so happy I picked up this book and I would recommend it to all!