YMMV / Molly Moon

• Contested Sequel: While books 4-6 have their fans, general consensus tends to view them as the weakest entries in the series. Namely, many reviewers felt that Molly continuously developing new superpowers — going from mere hypnosis, freezing time and time traveling, to telepathy and transformation — was stretching things and that the stories themselves come to either be predictable or Anvilicious in their themes.
• Escapist Character: Molly is an unpopular, plain-looking tween who lives in an orphanage and is constantly being dealt the raw hand. Then she becomes a powerful hypnotist and — after getting revenge on all of her bullies — uses her skills to become a rich Broadway sensation overnight, living by herself in a luxurious hotel suite with total freedom to do and have whatever she wants. Needless to say, many readers would love to be in Molly's shoes. Even after she has to give up her stardom in Book 1, her father turning out to be one of the richest men in America and her mother the descendant of a famous hypnotist in Stops the World, along with her continuous development of cool superpowers throughout the rest of the series, is more than enough to keep things exciting.
• First Installment Wins: Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism is remembered by many as a fun, feel-good read from their childhood, with Stops the World and Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure as worthwhile followups.
• Fridge Horror: A pretty young actress Molly briefly talks to in Stops the World mentions spending the night in Primo Cell's rooms. Molly also establishes in that very scene that Primo hypnotized the young woman. On Rewatch Bonus, older readers can get quite horrified at the implications.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Davina Nuttel is a thoroughly unpleasant and Spoiled Brat off-camera, but it's hard not to feel at least a little sorry for her when she's ousted from her career by Molly in the first book. Even more so in Stops the World, where she's abducted and tortured by Primo Cell. Understandably, Forest has taken her under his wing by the book's end.
  • Then there's Hazel. It turns out that her parents weren't actually the wonderful people she always boasted they were, but Abusive Parents who beat and screamed at her. Her file notes her as having been "bruised and malnourished" when she first arrived at Hardwick House.^note (This scene is heavily bowdlerized in the American edition, which instead lists Hazel's parents as actors whose lives were "too busy for a child" and abandoned her to the care of nannies.) By the time Molly and Rocky return from New York, Hazel has been so thoroughly broken by everything the other children have had to endure in their absence that she admits she bullied Molly out of jealousy for having had a loving mother figure in the form of Mrs. Trinklebury. She goes on to say that she hates herself and doesn't think that she's worthy of love, at which point even Molly feels sorry for her. Thankfully, things get better for her.
• Funny Moments: In the second book, minor characters Gerry and Gemma find the book on hypnosis and try to hypnotize Gerry's pet mouse, Victor. We are then treated to a short scene from the mouse's point of view:
  The girl seemed to be trying to communicate with him in mouse language. Her tone wasn't exactly "Mouse." It had a strong human accent, but was an understandable squeak all the same. It seemed to translate into "Slaap, slaap, slaap." Victor assumed she meant sleep, sleep, sleep. He felt slightly peeved. That was exactly what he'd been doing before he was so rudely awakened.
• Moment of Awesome: The entire bank robbery. All of it.

---