(Also, how is this book almost ten years old? Doesn't that make me old?)
Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes is the story of Ginny Blackstone and the thirteen scavenger hunt-y clues and tasks her recently-deceased aunt left her. She starts the trip at her aunt's old apartment in NYC, but the clues ultimately lead her overseas, saying she needs to really begin her trip in England.
England is where Ginny meets Richard, Aunt Peg's ex-roommate. He lets Ginny stay with him as she works through the next few envelopes, involving such tasks as "ask Richard what he sold to the Queen" and "donate five hundred pounds to a deserving artist."
Ginny has no idea how to find an artist she likes in a foreign country, but after some trial and error, she meets and benefacts Keith, a theater student currently running a production of Starbucks: The Musical. Ginny and Keith strike up a weird, tentative friendship and end up running off to Edinburgh together to complete Ginny's next envelope-mandated mission: meeting Aunt Peg's favorite artist.
Edinburgh is pretty fun - until Keith reveals that he stole a trinket from the artist's house as a memento for Ginny. She gets upset and leaves him once they get back to London, running off to the next destination by herself.
The next destination? Paris, where Aunt Peg painted the walls of a cafe. Ginny also visits Rome, Amsterdam, and Denmark, meeting people that get wilder and wilder in every new place. (The Knapps are my personal favorite of the bunch, but I digress.) Ginny's final stop is in Greece, where the last envelope gets stolen from her before she can even read it. Will she be able to get back home? More importantly, will she figure out what Aunt Peg really bequeathed her?
I really love Maureen Johnson's writing style. Her characters tend to be capable without being unrealistically strong, but also still susceptible to teenage ignorance and vulnerability. She's also just a lively writer - the main characters all get fleshed out, and even the one-trick-pony side characters don't feel cartoonish or cheap. I don't know if I like Ginny better than Rory Deveaux (from her Shades of London series), but I do know I'd hang out with either of them if they were real.
I also enjoy the concept of this novel. Mysterious trip around Europe solely to have adventures and fulfill my favorite relative's whims? I'm so in. Aunt Peg's rules for the trip also make it more fun: no electronics, no guidebooks. Ginny can't overprepare or rely on others to make her decisions like it's implied she normally would, and it gives her a lot of moments of genuine connection to the places she's in. Sure, it's not necessarily the safest way to travel, but Aunt Peg does provide a few handy tips for each place Ginny goes.
Going back to my point about characterization: no one in this novel can be described as solely bad or solely good, and I think that's my favorite thing about it. (Okay, maybe the people who steal Ginny's stuff are just bad, but we never actually meet them, so they don't count.) Aunt Peg is practically a deity to Ginny, but Keith points out that leaving all these seemingly arbitrary tasks for Ginny is kind of evasive. The people Ginny meets on her travels do both helpful and harmful things to her. Ginny herself blames Keith for stealing the toy from Mari, but then breaks Aunt Peg's rule of "no electronic communication" a few days later. Everyone is human, not Heroic Good Guys and Evil Bad Guys, and I think that's a good thing to read.
Overall, Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes is an adventure in and of itself, and has withstood the nearly ten years it's been around well - possibly because Ginny can't have technology. "Oooh, a Sidekick!!" would be really dated by now, no? Five stars.
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