This book is the first in a series called The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. This book is about four really smart orphans named Sticky, Kate, Reynie and Constance who are gathered by Mr. Benedict, the founder of the society, to go on a secret mission. Of all the orphans who take tests to see who will be part of the society, these four are the only ones who pass. They must stop someone named Ledroptha Curtain from broadcasting brainwashing messages on TV. They must pretend to be students at his school, The Institute, and find out his secrets to stop him from boosting the messages to full power and brainwashing people to think Mr. Curtain is their ruler. They use morse code to send messages to Mr. Benedict. This book takes place in modern times but not with phones and iPads and things like that. The story mostly takes place in Mr. Benedict’s house and The Institute.

Reynie, the main character because the book follows him most is brave, smart, and sneaky. He is brave because he goes on the mission even though it is dangerous. He is smart because he passed all the hard tests. Also he comes up with a lot of good plans and ideas for the mission. He is sneaky because he keeps his mission a secret from Mr. Curtain.

WARNING- this paragraph has major spoilers do not read if you don’t want the book to be spoiled

Reynie and Sticky have to become messengers to find out Mr. Curtains secrets because messengers are the ones who broadcast the messages on TV. Once they are chosen to become messengers, they find out that he uses a machine called the whisperer to send the messages. The whisperer is a weird machine that manipulates your thoughts and makes whoever is sitting in it think the messages. The whisperer then sends that thought out to the world and makes everyone think it as well. Reynie and Sticky sit in the whisperer and it uses their thoughts for the messages. They also find out that Mr. Curtain used the whisperer to take away people’s memories and make them think they are his servants. I thought the part when they found out Mr. Curtain was taking away people’s memories was important because the kids were sad that Mr. Curtain was doing that to people and were more motivated to stop him and save the people. I also thought the part when Reynie and Sticky became messengers was important because that had been their goal and they finally completed it. Reynie said “I just can’t believe he did that to those innocent people.” It was important because  it made everyone try harder to stop Mr.Curtain. In the end Reynie and Sticky destroy the whisperer by teaching themselves to resist the thoughts so strongly that it no longer works. I think this teaches people that our minds are very strong. For example the orphans learned how much strength they had. Constance who seemed liked the weakest, in the end was the one who resisted longer than anyone and really broke the whisperer.
I enjoyed this book a lot because it was a mystery and it was suspenseful. Also it had a lot of action and taught me a lot because the kids are really smart and they said a lot of things they knew in the book. I would recommend this book because the reader always wants to find out what will happen next because it is so suspenseful. Also there are are a lot of cliffhangers and people will want to keep reading because of that. This book reminds me of Evil Spy School because in that book the main character has to sneak into a school and be a secret agent and find out information just like in the Mysterious Benedict Society. I would rate this book 5 stars.