IDIOT GENIUS: Willa Snap and the Clockwerk Boy

By Richard Due

Hi! This book was amazing! It’s a story about a girl and how she gets whisked away to a brand new world. There are Idiots. Idiots are just normal people. There are Idiot Geniuses which you know probably as a genius (lowercase). It’s very confusing. And then there are Geniuses. They’re just one step smarter than Idiot Geniuses. And then there are Evil Geniuses. Those are the people who want to blow the world up… on purpose! Confused? I’m not surprised. I was too when I first started the book. But as we get deeper into this review, you’ll start to understand.

Willa Snap used to live an ordinary life. Until one day, her Idiot Genius mother (a walking encyclopedia) invents a purse that can fit things as big as a country into it. This way, you’ll never forget anything at home. But on the day of her mother’s big speech, Willa notices something odd about the crowd. It starts out with one person wearing all black – even black sunglasses. Then, the normal crowd is suddenly disappearing and people in black are coming in their place. Soon, the entire crowd is covered with people wearing black clothing.

Afterward, something amazing happens. They’re walking back to their house when a woman in black clothing stops them. She forces them into a time bubble and they’re taken to the lost city of Grandeur. As she gets to Grandeur, Willa notices something. Everything there is amazing! There are things that haven’t been invented yet outside of Grandeur. There are time machines and blippies. (Blippies are small flying electronics. You can put messages inside them. All you have to do is say who you want to send the message to, and it will fly to them and give them the message.)

Willa meets some friends and some friends and some foes at her Idiot school. (An Idiot school is a school for people like you and me. For normal people. For people who state obvious things. For example, when a room gets really quiet, you could whisper to someone, “It’s so quiet.” That’s an obvious statement, and something only an Idiot would do.) Just so you know, being an Idiot isn’t a bad thing. It’s normal. In fact, most people in Grandeur are Idiots. But when a Clockwerk Boy comes up to Willa on the train to her new apartment, she discovers that the future of Grandeur is in her hands.

Will Willa take on the challenge of saving Grandeur? Or will she let the people who have imprisoned her fall into peril? As I always say, read the book to find out!

A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:

“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor – zero being not scary at all and five being majorly scary): 3