Book Review: Dust & Grim by Chuck Wendig
The Details
Media Type: Ebook
Title: Dust & Grim
Author: Chuck Wendig
Publisher: Little Brown BFYR
Pages/Length: Hardcover; 384
Release Date: October 5, 2021
Source: Publisher / TBR And Beyond Book Tours
Add it on: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | Indigo | IndieBound
Miss Peregrine meets The Graveyard Book in this middle grade adventure about rival siblings running a monster mortuary—written by bestselling author Chuck Wendig.
Thirteen-year-old Molly doesn’t know how she got the short end of the stick—being raised by her neglectful father—while Dustin, the older brother she’s never met, got their mother and the keys to the family estate. But now the siblings are both orphaned, she’s come home for her inheritance, and if Dustin won’t welcome her into the family business, then she’ll happily take her half in cash.
There’s just one problem: the family business is a mortuary for monsters, and Molly’s not sure she’s ready to deal with mysterious doors, talking wolves, a rogue devourer of magic, and a secret cemetery. It’s going to take all of Dustin’s stuffy supernatural knowledge and Molly’s most heroic cosplay (plus a little help from non-human friends) for the siblings to figure it out and save the day… if only they can get along for five minutes.
Bestselling author Chuck Wendig’s middle grade debut is equal parts spooky, funny, and heartfelt—perfect for Halloween and year-round reading!
The Review
It’s no secret that I love a good middle grade book! Make it one that dabbles in the realm of Fantasy, and you have something that I will snap up in an instant. There’s just something MG Fantasy that hits that perfect mark between darkness and light. My favorite stories fall into this category, and a lot of my favorite characters do too. So, it makes sense that my heart was all in for Dust & Grim.
First up, massive kudos to Chuck Wendig for giving us a female character who adores cosplay! My heart swelled when I met Molly. A little worse for the wear, after the loss of her not-so-great father and an upended life that brought her to the home of a brother she never knew, Molly was my kind of girl. Rough around the edges, using sarcasm as a weapon, but inside just wanting something to fill a hole inside her. Her obsession with cosplay just sold it for me. As she lovingly described the costumes that she had designed, even going so far as to nitpick the little parts that were slightly off, I couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes what we wear outside helps us mirror what we wish we felt on the outside. Plus we get golden dialogue exchanges like this between her and her brother:
He stopped suddenly, “Why are dressed like that? Like a – what are you?”
“Ninja.”
“Why are you dressed like a ninja?”
“Why wouldn’t you want to dress like a ninja?”
Every other character in this story is equally as well written, and just as full of the same kind of vibrant personality traits. It’s not hard to see how easy it is to immediately fall in love with any of them. Especially Florg. A man… erm…. shimmer after my own heart. After all, who doesn’t like Cheese-Its? Seriously though, this ragtag group, this little makeshift family, are truly easy to appreciate and want to root for. You’ll see the trouble that they’re about to get into coming at them full force, and yet you’ll know that they can beat it as a team. I love when a group of characters has chemistry like that. It’s a wonderful thing.
My other favorite part about this book was the way that it handles the idea of “monsters” or what makes someone an “other”. Molly and Dustin are surrounded by all manner of odd entity. Their world is nothing like the one that Molly originally came from, and it would be easy for her to shun it all and in live in her comfortable bubble. Instead, real growth is shown here. There are messages about friendship, giving people a chance, and of course not judging someone before you know them. After all, it is definitely what is on the inside that counts. Here’s another of my favorite quotes, and I think this one is going on my wall.
“Monstrousness isn’t because of you who are, but because of the choices you make.”
My only complaint about this story was that it was written a little confusingly in terms of the age group it would be geared towards. The characters, and the messages present, feel like they are aimed at the lower end of the MG group. Very simple, and palatable. There isn’t anything overly scary, or dangerous present in this story. The dialogue, however, felt a little more geared towards the older readers in this age group. Which, I’ll admit, I loved. As a younger reader this book would have delighted me with all of the new vocabulary available to gobble up. So, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. I just wish it felt more seamless.
Still, this was an excellent read! As you can tell, most likely, from how long I’ve gushed on. Please give Dust & Grim a place on your spooky season reading list! This would be a great read-together book, or one for a chapter a night at bed time. Happy reading!
Chuck Wendig is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Star Wars: Aftermath, as well as the Miriam Black thrillers, the Atlanta Burns books, Zer0es/Invasive, Wanderers, and the upcoming Book of Accidents (July 2021). He’s also worked in a variety of other formats, including comics, games, film, and television. A finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the cowriter of the Emmy-nominated digital narrative Collapsus, he is also known for his books about writing. He lives in Pennsyltucky with his family.
