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A review by wutheringreader
Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson, Janci Patterson
2.0
Literally nothing happened for 90% of the book. The only actual events occurred in the last 50 pages. Those last 50 pages though were good; I liked the endnotes. But unlike all the previous Alcatraz books, this one wasn’t funny. There were a few moments that I silently laughed but nothing compares to how funny the previous books were. Those had me laughing in every page.
I don’t like how Bastille is portrayed as “haha I stab things.” That’s just a surface level understanding of her character, and I expected more. Even when Alcatraz was the narrator, I felt like Bastille’s character was much deeper. Honestly in this book she just felt mean and dumb.
Plus much of the Alcatraz series is based on cleverness and subverting expectations of what could happen. This was not that. There was nothing clever about it. That thing with the Gak was the most boring and stupid thing I had ever read. All the clever usage of Talents were things that happened in previous books. They basically just solved everything by luck and it wasn’t gratifying in any way. Biblioden was defeated by just being eaten by a stupid Gak? Literally what is this.
And then there’s this abomination: NO CHAPTER INTRODUCTIONS. I’m pretty sure that there were only three or something, and THEY WEREN’T EVEN GOOD OR CLEVER IN ANY WAY. The rest of the chapters Bastille ‘makes excuses’ as to why she won’t write an introduction. Huh? Alcatraz always writes an introduction for each chapter, it’s one of the most important things about the series. It’s MY favorite thing about the series. The fact that they just brushed past that was so annoying and it made the book even less enjoyable.
The cast of characters was SEVERELY underused. It was just Bastille and Alcatraz for the majority of the book having the same conversation they had a hundred times. Where’s Leavenworth? Draulin? Sing Smedry? In the last book of a series one expects the characters that we have grown to know and love to make a meaningful appearance and help solve the problem. And let me not speak about Alcatraz’s mom… um actually I will. There was so much foreshadowing in the previous books about how important she is/if she cares about Alcatraz/her general character. She always shows up in every book. There’s supposed to be some kind of conversation or resolution between her and Alcatraz in this book, to tie up the ends of the series. But NO! She is just mentioned in passing.
The illustrations were pretty as always but I felt like they were too dark in this one and there was something strange about them. Like the characters look like themselves but there’s just something wrong and I can’t pinpoint what it is.
Anyways this book was pretty boring and not that funny, but the ending was cute. I’m gonna miss my babies Alcatraz and Bastille<3 Can’t believe I don’t have any more Alcatraz books to read. Oh well. I guess I can reread the first 5 books again.
I don’t like how Bastille is portrayed as “haha I stab things.” That’s just a surface level understanding of her character, and I expected more. Even when Alcatraz was the narrator, I felt like Bastille’s character was much deeper. Honestly in this book she just felt mean and dumb.
Plus much of the Alcatraz series is based on cleverness and subverting expectations of what could happen. This was not that. There was nothing clever about it. That thing with the Gak was the most boring and stupid thing I had ever read. All the clever usage of Talents were things that happened in previous books. They basically just solved everything by luck and it wasn’t gratifying in any way. Biblioden was defeated by just being eaten by a stupid Gak? Literally what is this.
And then there’s this abomination: NO CHAPTER INTRODUCTIONS. I’m pretty sure that there were only three or something, and THEY WEREN’T EVEN GOOD OR CLEVER IN ANY WAY. The rest of the chapters Bastille ‘makes excuses’ as to why she won’t write an introduction. Huh? Alcatraz always writes an introduction for each chapter, it’s one of the most important things about the series. It’s MY favorite thing about the series. The fact that they just brushed past that was so annoying and it made the book even less enjoyable.
The cast of characters was SEVERELY underused. It was just Bastille and Alcatraz for the majority of the book having the same conversation they had a hundred times. Where’s Leavenworth? Draulin? Sing Smedry? In the last book of a series one expects the characters that we have grown to know and love to make a meaningful appearance and help solve the problem. And let me not speak about Alcatraz’s mom… um actually I will. There was so much foreshadowing in the previous books about how important she is/if she cares about Alcatraz/her general character. She always shows up in every book. There’s supposed to be some kind of conversation or resolution between her and Alcatraz in this book, to tie up the ends of the series. But NO! She is just mentioned in passing.
The illustrations were pretty as always but I felt like they were too dark in this one and there was something strange about them. Like the characters look like themselves but there’s just something wrong and I can’t pinpoint what it is.
Anyways this book was pretty boring and not that funny, but the ending was cute. I’m gonna miss my babies Alcatraz and Bastille<3 Can’t believe I don’t have any more Alcatraz books to read. Oh well. I guess I can reread the first 5 books again.