Actress and Saturday Night Live alumnus Kate McKinnon encourages "the next generation of weirdos" to shine in her joyfully bizarre middle-grade novel, The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science ("by G. Edwina Candlestank as told to Kate McKinnon").
Orphaned sisters Gertrude, Eugenia, and Dee-Dee Porch are misfits in the "pristine town of Antiquarium," more interested in "various scientific pursuits" than manners. The girls have been expelled from every local etiquette school, and their adoptive family is threatening to send them to boarding school. Then the Porch sisters receive an invitation to a mysterious new institution: the Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science. Millicent, an "infamous mad scientist," introduces the girls to a world of unnatural creatures and strange inventions--and reveals she has brought them together to defeat a "sinister cohort of evil mad scientists" threatening Antiquarium.
McKinnon's debut combines madcap adventures with imaginative worldbuilding and charming characters, all enhanced by illustrator and comic book artist Alfredo Caceres's endearingly creepy illustrations. Fans of Lemony Snicket and Pseudonymous Bosch should enjoy McKinnon's wordplay and humorous footnotes, and a cliffhanger ending will likely leave readers eager for more hijinks. --Alanna Felton, freelance reviewer