Block-B-Gone A Quick Guide to Overcoming Writer's Block

I’ve decided to tackle a problem that seems to plague every writer at some point or another. That’s right today I will be discussing the terror known as writer’s block.

I’ve battled on and off with writers block ever since I started writing. My first real experience with it was in middle school when after a writing club meeting I was assigned the task of writing a piece of short fiction dealing with advertising. I thought and thought on what I was going to do and came up empty each time. I was hit with the double whammy of blank page syndrome and writer’s block all at once and I couldn’t figure out where to go. 

Some of you may have experienced this awful feeling of wanting desperately to put something down on the page and not being able to. Others may be well into their work and have simply ground to a halt (or maybe come screaming to a stop) but almost any serious writer has come across it. Everyone says something different about writer’s block and curing it and I even came up with a miracle cure of my own back in middle school while wrestling with my short story. I finally hammered out the story of a sad author stuck deep in the mires of writer’s block who conveniently tunes into a commercial for a miracle drink known as Block-B-Gone the revolutionary cure for writers block.

If only curing writer’s block could be as easy as taking a swig of good old Block-B-Gone. 

Over the years as I’ve struggled with writer’s block I’ve come across a lot of different advice, some of it worked and some of it didn’t. I’m going to give you my top ten list of ‘Block-B-Gone’ cures that have helped me to get past some of my toughest bouts with writers block. I’ve used all of these at least once and some of them on a regular basis just to keep my writing on track. I hope at least one of them can help you. 

Block-B-Gone

Ten ways to get rid of Writer’s Block:

10: Just keep on writing past the block. It doesn’t matter what you are writing, just make sure you are writing. Even if you’ve moved away from your novel, poem, or whatever as long as you keep plowing forward eventually you’ll break through.

9: When writer’s block sets in step away from your desk, notebook, ect. and do something else for a while. 

8: Do a writing exercise or find some prompts. These can both help you get started or keep moving in your writing. There are a lot of them out there and they can be a great way to generate ideas. 

7: This goes with number 9, get some exercise. Getting your body moving helps to shake away all the mess and clear the way for great ideas, just make sure you’ve got a notebook on hand for when that idea finally does strike.

6: Set it aside for a few days and then come back to it and read it over again. 

5: Ideas will hit you at the most unexpected of times so keep a notebook ready for when they do. You never know what mundane event in your life will spark the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for in your novel.  

4: The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck.

3: Ignore your inner critic. We are often the hardest on ourselves and this can often halt our writing process if we are not careful. I have often talked myself out of writing something for fear of how it would look or turn out. 

2: Have fun. Albert Einstein once said “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” And I’ve found this to be true. I started writing because it was fun. I’ve always enjoyed telling stories or making them up with friends and we were always at our best when we were having fun. The two just go together. 

1: When you are stuck that is your subconscious trying to tell you that you have gone in a wrong direction. Step back and look at what you’ve written and don’t be afraid to rewrite whole sections of your work. I got this advice when I was seriously stuck on a chapter in my novel and I ended up having to rewrite over a chapter and a half because of it. However the rewrite changed the story back into a direction I liked and things are flowing very well now.

My personal favorite cures on this list are cures #1 and 2 (that’s probably the reason there at the top of my list…). They tend to go best together for me. As long as I’m having fun and the story is flowing in the right direction writer’s block seems to stay far away. It’s only when I let it become work or try to think too hard about the story that things get messy.

I understand writing is hard, but so is everything that is worthwhile in life. Don’t let the block get you down, try some of these ‘cures’ and if they don’t work and you still need help there are plenty more on the internet to try. My advice? Use what works for you. You know yourself and your writing best, so stick to the things that tend to work for you and you’ll do fine.

~Dawn

The Girl With the Blood Red Lips Book Review

The Girl With the Blood Red Lips

V.B. Marlowe

Rating (out of 5): 3.5

Genre: Young Adult Romance

Release Date: April 23, 2014

Series: Curses in Crimson

Series Volume: 1

Profanity: Mild

Violence: Mild

Sexual Content:  

Age Recommendation: 13+

Author Website: N/A




Summary (found on Amazon):

Neva is different. Aside from having a phobia of mirrors and an unquenchable desire for apples, she harbors a dark secret. She's been cursed to repeat the same three years of her life over and over again. Unfortunately, these three years happen to be Neva's sophomore, junior, and senior years of high school, and high school's not that easy when everyone considers you a freak. To break her curse, Neva must accomplish a grisly task that she can't bring herself to complete. Will Neva break her curse in time, or will she be bound by it forever?

Review:

I am an avid reader of anything to do with fairy tales, especially if it is a retelling. Needless to say this book caught my eye from the start. I could tell from the summary that it was going to have to do with Snow White. I don't care for the original tale but I've really enjoyed some of it's retellings so I was hoping this would be another to add to my list of retellings.

The Girl with the Blood Red Lips starts out slowly and at first glance it looks like it will be another one of those 'high school' books that features on the outcast leaving her group of friends to join the popular crowd. This story comes with the twist of it having witches and cursed princesses however and things really start to heat up in the second half of the book when a few characters turn up murdered.

Neva dosen't feel at all like the usual snow white character. In fact aside from her refusal to break her curse she isn't very snow white like at all. She's almost a flat character who doesn't argue much and is easily swept up in the politics and flow of High School. You'd think that after 200 years of dealing with it she'd have a better grasp of what it's like to be in High School, and while she says she does I don't see it in the book. Her best friend feels very typical in her role and doesn't have much to her except to be a device to move the story forward. In fact the only character who really intrigued me at all was Henry the boy next door who we never see. Literally. Until the end of the book both the reader and Neva only hear his voice.

The story is interesting and I would have liked to see it focus a little more on Neva's curse and the fairy tale aspect of her life, but we mostly get school politics and the occasional trip to the fair. As I said earlier it moves slowly in the first half and then begins to pick up momentum later on. Things really started to get interesting for me when more cursed characters began to show up and we got to know a deeper detail about Neva's curse and what it takes to break it.

Romance is an interesting subject in this book, seeing as Neva's curse prevents her from really having true relationships altogether. I enjoyed the fact that she didn't need a knight in shining armor or a prince to save her along with the fact that the romance in the book wasn't sappy or overdone. Her reaction's to wanting attention from a boy and dealing with the fact that she could never truly have it were written well and felt real.

The ending wraps up well giving us a good ending to Neva's story while simultaneously giving us a hint at what is to come next. The reader could choose to not read the rest of the series and be happy with this ending or they could be excited for the next book.

The book was good with an intriguing premise, it was creative, and a great place to go after the story of Snow White, but it just didn't do it for me. I think it will be interesting to see where the author goes next. I liked it and I didn't. I may or may not read the next book. I would recommend it to someone who needs something to read, but don't count on it knocking your socks off.

Note: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for my fair and honest review which I have stated above.

~Dawn

John Dreamer Book Review

John Dreamer

Elise Celine

Rating (out of 5): 3.5

Genre: Young Adult Romance

Release Date: February 12, 2014

Series: John Dreamer

Series Volume: 1

Profanity: Mild

Violence: Mild

Sexual Content: None 

Age Recommendation: 10+

Author Website: http://www.eliseceline.com/





Summary:

Andy wasn’t usually sure about much, but she was absolutely certain this was the weirdest day of her life as she stood stranded in the middle of a great white room with six strangers. Well, they were mostly strangers. She could have sworn she’d seen the guy with the green eyes before, and maybe that was why he kept staring at her. When a man calling himself the Guardian appeared and said they had come to make their deepest dreams come true, they embark on an adventure none of them ever imagined, and the consequences of their actions would change them forever.

Review:

Allow me to start off by saying that I really did enjoy this book. Despite the areas that needed cleaning and tightening I thought the plot and story were very good. John Dreamer is a book that along with a gorgeous cover has a great premise. Andy and another 6 people end up in a white room that spurns them into an adventure where all of their dreams can come true and they can change and grow themselves. My expectations were high going in, and after the first few pages I felt like I was really going to enjoy the book. I had a few problems with it though.

I feel like with some editing this book could have been really great. Now I'm not saying that there were typos all over the place, what I'm saying is that the plot could have been tighter and more planned out. As I read through the dreams of each of the characters I felt like many of the scenes were pieced together in a choppy way. Yes they flowed, and I never found myself suddenly going from once scene to another, but there was something missing especially in the beginning. As the book continued the pacing and stories tightness seemed to get better and have an easier flow.

My second problem also has to do with the pacing, often times I would read a sentence or few words that just should have been left out. It felt like many times things that were thought or said could have been taken out in the editing process. These extras often jarred me out of the story causing me to have to stop and wonder why that was even there in the first place.

The characters while I liked them felt almost one dimensional. Many of them had one major character trait that basically personified them completely. This bothered me a little in the beginning and then more as the story went on when the characters were still doing the same thing's they had been in the first few chapters. Even Andy and John began to get on my nerves a little with their sameness. I did however really like the growth that came about for each character as they were fulfilling their dreams. This added a chance for me to get to know a different side of them and gave them more depth than they had before.

The relationships each character had with the other felt very rushed, and I think this is another part of the stories pacing issue. Many times things felt very rushed while others they were too slow. Andy's 8 1/2 second love at first sight experience seemed way to rushed for me in the beginning, but by the end I understood it's significance, and was pleasantly surprised by it. Sometimes the love story seemed a little too sappy for me even knowing the details but overall I didn't have too much of a problem with it.

Now that I've rambled on about what I didn't like let me tell you what I did enjoy.

The dreams, and how the were fulfilled. Elise Celine was very creative with each dream and many of them I wasn't expecting. She didn't fall into the trap of using a set pattern for each dream's appearing and resolution. But she also made it clear when one was over. The character's back stories were another thing I enjoyed and some of the shocks that came with birthdays and events that happened on them really surprised me and made me think.

The second half of the book's pacing was as I've said much better than the first half. It seems that the author really began to figure it out and kept the action moving building into an amazingly suspenseful ending. The prose was still a little loose in places but for the most part it had cleaned up as well. And the second half had scenes that moved me to tears, some of the back story and dreams were really heart wrenching and beautifully done.

The books ending was my favorite part of all, and not because it was the end. Things really began to move fast and much was reviled that I wasn't expecting. I was left desperately wanting to know more about John and the Guardian as well as the reason behind it all. I hope to see more information about the importance of the dates in future books, along with getting to see the other characters again. I feel like things that happened at the end were what I'd been waiting for the whole book, like it was all leading up to this one part. And I hope that the next book answers all the questions I'm now left with.

I've given this book 3.5 stars because I loved the story, but it really needed going over with a fine toothed comb. I hope to see more from this author because I can see a lot of great things coming from her. I would just like to see her stuff cleaner and a little more planned out. I will be reading the next book and may even recommend this one to a few people.

Note: I received a copy of this book from NetGally for my honest opinion which I have stated above.

~Dawn

Stravaganza: City of Masks Book Review

 Stravaganza: City of Masks 

Mary Hoffman

Rating (out of 5): 5

Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction/Fantasy

Release Date: February 1, 2011

Series: Stravaganza

Series Volume: 1

Profanity: None

Violence: Mild

Sexual Content: None 

Age Recommendation: 8+

Author Website: http://www.maryhoffman.co.uk/

Summary (found on Amazon):

Lucien is very sick with cancer and struggles with his parents' worry every day. But each night, through a magical gift from his father, his mind is transported to an enchanting city, Bellezza, a parallel city to Venice of our world. In Bellezza, Lucien discovers that he is a Stravagante, a rare person able to travel through worlds while sleeping.Befriended by a local girl and protected by an older Stravagante, Lucien uncovers a plot to murder the city's beloved ruler, the Duchessa. But to save the Duchessa and the city Lucien risks his only chance to return home to family and his real life. The well-paced, thick-with-plot story will hook the reader immediately and not let go until the superb, unexpected end. City of Masks is the first in the acclaimed Stravaganza series from the gifted Mary Hoffman.

Review:

This is my second time reading this book, and I enjoyed it just as much this time as I did the last time I read it. This is one of my favorite Historical Fiction/Fantasy series and for good reason. Mary Hoffman does an excellent job of reproducing the feel of a historical Italy while at the same time not having to be completely accurate, since it is in an alternate form.

Lucien is a young man who has cancer. While he is recovering from his latest bout with the illness he is given a journal by his father. This journal is more than a way to communicated with his parents when his throat is too sore for him to talk, it is a talisman that allows Lucien to travel to an alternate form of Venice. What follows is a tale of adventure and excitement, with a little history mixed in.  

The world Mary Hoffman builds in this book is so wonderful. It's a delightful step back in the past, but at the same time a step into another world. Bellezza is a beautiful city that makes me want to go visit Venice just to get a feel for what things are like for Lucien and his friends. The magic, or shall I say science, is delightfully woven into the story and done in such a way I almost want to look for a talisman myself. And the bits of historical information are a delight to read about. 

The characters are live and engaging and Hoffman does an excellent job of displaying Lucien's situation in a way that we are sympathetic and get a feel for what he's going through, but his illness doesn't rule the story. Each character, main and minor, feels like they have a real personality. Most of them jump off the page and stand out making them easy to distinguish from one another. And I can't help but love the good guys and the bad in this book.

I love the way this is told from third person, YA isn't often written in this POV and I really enjoy getting to read it. It could be because I prefer writing in third person myself or I just prefer the way third person reads. The reader is allowed to get into the characters heads, but we don't have to live there for the whole book. It helped me to get to know each character, and not only the main ones, but the minors as well. I liked the wide arching feel that it gave the book.

The pacing in City of Masks is very good, it's never too fast and rarely feels slow. The story goes a lot of places and covers a good deal of time but every scene feels like it belongs. I enjoyed the back and forth between Bellezza and the modern world and the transitions were very well done. It was interesting to see how Lucien reacted to each one, and how the two of them affected one another. There aren't many shockers in this book, but when you get to them they do surprise you. Even reading through this a second time I was still on the edge of my seat at certain points waiting and hoping to see what happened to some of my favorite characters.

City of Masks is a fun engaging historical read that will take you further than the past and make history fun. The other books in this series are also all very good and I highly recommend the entire series to anyone needing a good historical fiction, story about Italy, light fantasy, or just good read.

~Dawn

Missing In Venice

The following is a short story based off of the image titled Missing in Venice from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Van Allsburg. Countless people have written their own versions of the stories found in his book and this my addition to that collection.

 

Missing In Venice

 

Even with her mighty engines in reverse, the ocean liner was pulled further and further into the canal. The ship was in chaos, everyone was clamoring to know what was going on. People swarmed the edges peering over the side of the ship at the buildings they were just squeezing past. Crowds clamored at the door to the control room demanding to know what was going on.

Atea wasn’t worried about their situation, in fact everything was going as planned. Under the cover of all the chaos she was making her way carefully through the inner parts of the ship towards her goal. She’d been planning this heist for years and excitement at how well it was working bubbled up within her threatening to burst out in laughter. But she had to keep it in, at least until she was finished. Then she could celebrate.

Her attention was focused on her goal and she swiftly made her way through the empty hallways of the ship’s interior to reach the cabin she was looking for. The lock was simple to pick and soon she was in the cabin looking at the sparse, but richly decorated room. The cabin was larger than most and the occupant had paid highly for the privacy it granted, being far from any other rooms it was almost forgettable in it’s corner of the ship. Exactly the way both Atea and her mark liked it.

The safe was right where she knew it would be, hidden in the wall above the bed. Having helped design the boat herself Atea was one of the few people who knew about the secret location. The safe opened as quickly as the door did under her experienced hand and she took a breath in anticipation as she pulled the obscure brown box out of its hiding place.

To anyone else its contents would be paltry, unworthy of all the trouble she’d gone through to acquire it. But to Atea the content’s were priceless, years of her life sat safely in the box and she was finally getting them back.

She pulled a fake box out of her bag and put it in place of the old one tucking her prize into her bag. After locking the safe once more and making sure she left no trace in the room of her ever being there she slipped back out of the room locking the door behind her.

Her trip back onto the main deck of the ship passed quickly and soon Atea found herself blinking in the bright Venice sunlight. The ship was still on course through the canal and she pushed her way forward to get a good look out at the city. People looked in awe at the ship as it passed by and Atea couldn’t help but wave at a few of them her joy at her victory showing in her smile and carefree stance. Soon the ship would reach it’s destination, and then she’d finally be free.

Jacaby Book Review

Jacaby

By. William Ritter

Rating (out of 5): 5

Genre: Young Adult Mystery/Fantasy  

Release Date: September 16, 2014

Series: None, so far

Series Volume: n/a

Profanity: None

Violence: Mild

Sexual Content: None 

Age Recommendation: 10+

Author Website: https://twitter.com/Willothewords

Summary:

Jackaby sighed and drew to a stop as we reached the corner of another cobbled street. He turned and looked at me with pursed lips. “Let’s see,” he said at last. “I observed you were recently from the Ukraine. A young domovyk has nestled in the brim of your hat. More recently, you seem to have picked up a Klabautermann, a kind of German kobold attracted to minerals. Most fairy creatures can’t touch the stuff. That’s probably why your poor domovyk nestled in so deep.”

Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary--including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby’s assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. The police are convinced it’s an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it’s a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police--with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane--deny.

Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.

Review:

What caught my eye first about Jackaby was it’s beautiful cover and the blurb about it being Doctor Who meet’s Sherlock clinched it for me as a need to read book. Jackaby did not disappoint.

The story follows Abigail Rook as she tries to make her way in the world. She’s just arrived in New Fiddleham disappointed from what should have been her great adventure, but only turned out to be too much work for not enough reward. Still eager to find her place in the world and not have to rely on her parents she takes a job with the eccentric R. F. Jackaby an investigator who is more than he seems. What follows is a sometimes serious, sometimes funny, and often insane investigation of the strange and chilling murder of a reporter. 

Jackaby surprised me with its delightful prose that pulled me right into the world William Ritter has created. Ritter does an excellent job weaving together his words as he paints a delightful Victorian setting and more than often I would actually stop reading just to re-read a passage of description to take in the scene he was describing.  Words that jump off the page at you and pull you right into the story is something I really enjoy reading but don’t often see. 

Each of the characters was a delight to meet and grow to know as I made my way through this book. Abigail’s strong personality and optimistic spin on things helps to root me in the ground whenever Jackaby starts to get a little crazy. And what’s not to like about the odd investigator? His quirks, like his affection for his silly hat, and his tendency not to notice the normal things are endearing qualities.
 And whenever I almost lost myself in his silliness he always does something to remind me how sharp he really is. The other characters that show up are all well rounded as well and I was pleasantly surprised to meet a vibrant cast of characters. Too often in mystery books the main characters are the only one’s given personality and spark but I felt like I really got to know each character in this book.

The mystery was interesting to work out. There were quite a few times I thought I had it figured out, but every time I’d completely missed it. At some parts of the book I felt like I was on the same page as Jackaby, while during other time’s I was right there with Abigail trying to figure it out while being surrounded by the supernatural. 

Speaking of the supernatural, William Ritter does a great job tying it in to this novel. It’s not just thrown in to be something that moves the story along. It is woven into every piece of the story. Ritter makes sure not to overuse any of the many clichés that have formed around the supernatural genre and finds interesting ways of integrating both new and old kinds of creatures. 

One of the things that did bother me in this book was that an early chapter is ‘omitted’ by request of Jackaby. This normally wouldn’t bother me, except that the story never stopped to tell you that you were reading were Abigail’s notes on the case. This was the first instance of that in the story, and then there are no other mentions of these being any kind of notes until the very end when the Supplemental Material (which I recommend you read by the way, it’s a very funny addition to the story) shows up. I would have liked to have been warned that we were reading her notes, and if this is included in future books be warned there as well. The way it is now it was confusing for me. But overall it doesn’t take away from the story. 

As for the blurb about it being Sherlock meets Doctor Who, I can agree with that. Except that the Doctor Who feel I got from it dealt more with Jackaby than with time travel or aliens. Jackaby had a very Doctor-y feel to him, which I really enjoyed. And if you are a fan of Sherlock in any way than you will most likely enjoy this book. 

All in all I really enjoyed reading this book. It grabbed my attention from the very start and didn’t let go until I’d finished the story. I give it a 5/5 rating and would recommend it to anyone looking for a good mystery or fun story. 

Note: I received an early copy of this book from NetGally for my honest opinion which I have stated above.

~Dawn

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians Book Review

Alcatraz Verses the 
Evil Librarians

Brandon Sanderson 

Rating (out of 5): 5

Genre: Fantasy 

Release Date: October 1, 2007

Series: Alcatraz

Series Volume: 1

Profanity: None

Violence: Mild

Sexual Content: None 

Age Recommendation: 8+

Author Website: http://brandonsanderson.com/

Summary (found on Amazon):

The evil Librarians are coming!

A hero with an incredible talent...for breaking things. A life-or-death mission...to rescue a bag of sand. A fearsome threat from a powerful secret network...the evil Librarians.

Alcatraz Smedry doesn't seem destined for anything but disaster. On his 13th birthday he receives a bag of sand, which is quickly stolen by the cult of evil Librarians plotting to take over the world. The sand will give the Librarians the edge they need to achieve world domination. Alcatraz must stop them!...by infiltrating the local library, armed with nothing but eyeglasses and a talent for klutziness.

Review:

My brother is in love with this author, but I haven't read him until now. On a recommendation from not one but two librarians (GASP I know) I decided to read this book. And I must say I was not displeased with how it turned out.

I started Alcatraz knowing only the title, but with a title like Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians who really needs a summary? And if the title doesn't hook you I guarantee the first chapter will. This book is really unlike anything I've read in a long time, and I'm hard pressed to find anything to compare it to.

Alcatraz has been in and out of foster homes all of his life and trouble seems to follow him wherever he goes. He has a remarkable ability to break things, and it has gotten him into a lot of trouble. On his thirteenth birthday he receives a bag of sand as his inheritance from his parents and meets his grandfather who proceeds to pull him into a world he never would have imagined. This world is one controlled by evil librarians and one where his talent of breaking things is considered a good thing, even if he is having trouble controlling it. His quest to recover his inheritance from the librarians who've stolen it is a wild one that takes readers deep into a library that is lit by lanterns shaped strangely like fruit, and populated not only by horned rimmed glasses wearing librarians but also by the occasional dinasour.

And I  haven't even mentioned the magical glasses that Alcatraz is lucky enough to be able to wield. There is so much to this story to give you an accurate description of everything I liked would be to spoil the whole book. This book is so crazy it's good. Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians doesn't take itself too seriously and is sure for a good laugh. It's a quick but fun read and I found myself flying through the pages laughing constantly. I haven't enjoyed a book this funny in a long time. Even in all of the book's hilarity it still has a coherent and interesting story.

Alcatraz Smedry, the narrator of this book, tells story from first person as a sort of autobiography. In his telling he is constantly interrupting for different reasons, often times to tell the reader something that doesn't even relate to what is going on. This was one of my favorite aspects of the book. I found myself looking forward to each new chapter and each new 'introduction' to the chapter. Alcatraz's monologs often had me rolling in laughter and many times I nodded my head in agreement with something he said (such as his description about authors and their delight in leaving cliffhangers for their readers) And his little references to things like See chapter 15 kept me jumping around looking at all the cleaver devices in the book. Not only that but this book is filled to the brim with references any fantasy fan would appreciate. There is so much going on it would seem like it's hard to keep up with, but that's just the opposite of how I felt. Even with all of the interruptions and references going on around the story I found the story easy to keep up with.

My favorite character by far is Alcatraz. It's not difficult for me to enjoy his quippy sarcastic, and awkward self. His voice is by far the strongest in the book simply because he is the narrator. But I think that even written in third person I still would like Alcatraz best, he's a very open and real character. His goal is to let readers know the real him, to give them the truth of who he is and I think that is one of the things I like best about him. A close second is Bastille who is a lot more than she first seems. The other characters are also enjoyable particularly Alcatraz's Grandfather. The villains are a little cardboardy but to be fair most of them don't get a lot of time in the book. The main two villains have some character and are interesting, if not likable.

Have I mentioned the world building in this book yet? No, well somehow amidst all of the fun Brandon Sanderson manages to build a wonderful world similar to ours but totally different as well. One of the best parts about this book is despite the crazy things that happen you can still imagine it being real. There is an explanation for everything that makes sense in the context of the book. The reader can really step into Alcatraz's world and feel like they could live there. Brandon's descriptions and Alcatraz's responses to what is going on around him really set the reader up to be willing to suspend their disbelief every time they open the book again to read.

There is nothing I did not like about this book, except that it was too short. But that is easily rectified by getting my hands on the next book, and the rest of the series.

Overall Alcatraz was a great read that I will recommend to anyone in need of a good laugh, or just a good book. It's great for kids to read but I think that adults may enjoy it more simply because they would catch more of the hints and references talked about in the book. I cannot stress enough how often this book made me laugh. The thing I like best about reading is getting to laugh and Alcatraz never let me down in this area. It truly lifted my spirits and gave me a great laugh without taxing my brain too much, and yet it still managed to keep my mind active as I plodded on through the story. As a short, quick read I give it a perfect score for what it hands out.

~ Dawn