Book Review: "Drowned Wednesday" by Garth Nix

SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY

Arthur ends up at Sea in the House, but his ride misses him. Then he gets picked up by some salvagers. Instead of just worrying about his meeting with Lady Wednesday, he has to worry about Leaf (who he has been separated from) and a Pirate called Feverfew, who had a mark put on Arthur, for touching his treasure.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Arthur is still unsure of himself. But he does learn to be more forthcoming, as he eventually reveals his identity.

Leaf accidentally gets taken to the house when she comes to visit Arthur at the hospital. She isn't in most of the story.

Suzy is only the later half of the story. But she helps Arthur find the will and even has a part in the climax.

Drowned Wednesday is a slave to her gluttony (one of the seven deadly sins). The truth about her isn't explained right away. But people seem to fear her and we eventually learn why.

Dr. Scamandros is one of the residents of the ship that rescues Arthur. He has tattoos that move and change on his bald head according to his emotions.

The Will, part three is rather commanding and has a large group of followers. I found his scenes rather funny actually.

PACING

The story actually starts faster than all the others. To be fair, the last book set up this one. Arthur gets an invitation, so we understand he might be forced back into the House against his will. It was very reminiscent of “The Dawn Treader” by C.S. Lewis.

But after this, there is some waiting around to be rescued, so the pace slows back down. Although there are some good cliffhanger chapter endings that help. There is action in the book, perhaps more than the last two.

LEAF & ALBERT

When Arthur finally sees Leaf again she mentions the loss of her crew mate, Albert. She seems really sad about this, but to me, who had only seen him in one scene, I had a hard time feelings her sorrow. I wish more scenes of her experiences with him had been shown. Even if they were short scenes simply inserted between Arthur's main story.

THE RAISED RATS

The raised rats are rats that used to serve the Piper and were brought to the house him. Now they are messenger rats. They play an important part in the story.

MARK OF THE MARINER-SPOILERS

In the last book we met the Mariner, and in this book his mark ends up saving Arthur.

DROWNED WEDNESDAY-SPOILERS

Wednesday is different than the other morrow days thus far, because her sin has overtaken her so much that she cannot retain her form. Also she seeks out Arthur first, instead of the other way around and we meet her less than halfway through the story.

There is more suspense regarding her because we have to learn about her from other people, and what we do learn sounds horrific.

A WHALE OF A TIME-SPOILERS

I found it interesting that besides the fact that the morrow days each have a deadly sin they represent, we also have a whale in this story. And we end up re-enacting an old testament Bible story. You don't have to be religious to figure out which one it is. But I actually liked the idea, as instead of some allegory, its perhaps only slight inspiration for our story.

ADVENTURES OF THE HEIR

Arthur reveals his identity, only to be laughed at. Turns out there is a novel going around telling about how he defeated Monday and Tuesday. It describes him as some action hero, basically nothing like he actually is. I thought this was interesting, to see that people we making propaganda about him. But Arthur never gets to confront Dame Primus about it.

THE ARCHITECT

The raised rats inquire about the architect and he has to reiterate that he was told that the architect went away and was not killed. It's interesting to see that not everyone knows what happened to her.

LEAVE ME

When a bunch of people are trapped, with only one exit to escape, a side characters won't leave because of his stamp collection. I thought this was weird and out of place. He ended up dying but we don't really talk about it.

A GREAT REVELATION

Arthur already knew about the Piper and the Mariner being children of the Old One. But he learns about a third person he did not know of.

ARTHUR & LEAF

Since they spend most of the book apart, there isn't really any time to grow a relationship. Leaf may have helped Arthur in the last book, and he confided in her at the beginning of this one, but we don't actually seem them grow closer. And the time they spend together is always rather short.

CLIMAX

Arthur finds the will but has to face Feverfew. With the help of Suzy and Leaf, they defeat him.

CONCLUSION

The raised rats were unique and the salvagers that Arthur meets are interesting and often funny. I liked meeting one of the Morrow days that was different than the first two and we meet her much sooner.

The pacing was slightly better, perhaps because of the action regarding the ships and the ocean.

Suzy was her usual silly self but I wish that we had gotten some time with Leaf. I still feel like I don't really know her at all and couldn't feel any sympathy for her loss. Not to mention Arthur's motivation to find her is guilt, not friendship.

I give “Drowned Wednesday” three and half stars.