What Abigail Did That Summer - Rambling Readers

DigitalRob reviewed What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London, #5.3)

“Ghost Hunter, Fox Whisperer, Troublemaker"

5 stars

Content warning Spoilers in the 2nd half of the review.

I keep waffling between four and five stars. I’m going with five. I love Abigail: she’s such a rebel. I hope we get to see her learning magic and moving into adulthood as the novels continue. She’s funny and resourceful.

“Ghost Hunter, Fox Whisperer, Troublemaker,” the title of the last chapter says it all.

While I thoroughly enjoyed this whole story, two aspects stood out: the foxes and a new type of genius loci. I wonder if the story of man losing his gifts and the fox regaining its voice is a real myth or created for this universe. Abigail’s connection to the foxes and their willingness to support her on this case is wonderful. They become real characters.

—-------- Here be spoilers…

Once Abigail decided the house wasn’t haunted and began considering that it was a genius loci of its own, I wondered how Aaronovitch would explain that possibility, then we get a quick introduction to the witch. When she realizes she’s a memory, not even a ghost, her first question of Abigail, who is from the far future relatively, is about the state of women. Are they respected in the future?

I was surprised that Abigail isn’t aware of the female practitioners encountered in the other novels… but maybe that happens after book five. Hmmm… It’s hard to keep the timeline of some events because I read many of the novels in quick succession.

Moonmoth reviewed What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London, #5.3)

Review of 'What Abigail Did That Summer' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Another great "Rivers" story by Aaronovitch, although it obviously has no appearance of Peter Grant - his cousin Abigail refers to him a lot though. She has an altogether different "voice" as a narrator, and that makes her interesting, although the story itself has broadly the same structure as earlier works. Very well done shorter work, I'd love to read more of Abigail.

Frank Burns reviewed What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London, #5.3)

Review of 'What Abigail Did That Summer' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A very strong 4.5. This is another enjoyable addition to this series, the quality level just doesn't seem to drop. I have thoroughly enjoyed the novellas (and the comics, quibbles about the artist aside) and this is another fine addition.
A haunted house story and teen hijinks all rolled into one. With a delicate note of pathos and some nice backstory for the Abigail character.
Recommended.

Dec 2021 - As I only read this previously in March I think the review above stands.

urbaer reviewed What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London, #5.3)

Review of 'What Abigail Did That Summer' on 'GoodReads'

No rating

I don't quite know what I think of this one. Abagail is nice enough and the foxes are charming.

I like the concept of the situation/big bad that Abagail is facing in theory maybe more than I like it in practice. I like the idea of it, but I don't think it plays out the right way. I'm trying to keep this spoiler free and I suspect that I shouldn't.

My major bugbear was two things, first I was unclear who Abagail is writing this for. Postmartin is making notes for someone (it may have been pointed out early on who for, but I may have forgotten) on Abagail's prose and this mostly feels like it's an excuse to explain Britishisms to Americans, because presumably American readers can't be bothered to google things when they hit a word that they don't know. But also to explain some youf speak which …

I don't quite know what I think of this one. Abagail is nice enough and the foxes are charming.

I like the concept of the situation/big bad that Abagail is facing in theory maybe more than I like it in practice. I like the idea of it, but I don't think it plays out the right way. I'm trying to keep this spoiler free and I suspect that I shouldn't.

My major bugbear was two things, first I was unclear who Abagail is writing this for. Postmartin is making notes for someone (it may have been pointed out early on who for, but I may have forgotten) on Abagail's prose and this mostly feels like it's an excuse to explain Britishisms to Americans, because presumably American readers can't be bothered to google things when they hit a word that they don't know. But also to explain some youf speak which is fairly easy to decipher from context.

But it's a light quick read and expands the Rivers world somewhat, so... yeah.

Andrew Lane

rated it

March 22, 2021

Phil Sorrell

rated it

Feb 4