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cellular_cosmogony 's review for:
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians
by Brandon Sanderson
TWs: violence, torture, guns, parental abandonment, verbal abuse of a child, foster care system, brief mention of anorexia
Rating: 3/5
Would recommend for: the target age
If you’ve seen the title of this book you’d probably assume its aim to convince your child, or someone else’s child, or maybe you, that Librarians are secretly evil. That is not entirely correct – while, yes that is a concurringly possible, considering librarians are the bad guys here, I think the most likely thing any reader would conclude is that writers are sadists.
The story is told by a very self-aware narrator (an older version of the protagonist), who is quite aware of being an author and delights in torturing his readers with nasty literary devices like hooks, and cliffhangers, which he readily explains to the audience. The book is actually pretty clever – it plays around with literary conventions, has a simple but imaginatively used magic system, and the narrator’s voice is quite distinctive. However, I feel like at times the story was too preoccupied with being clever and missed some opportunities to expand on its other aspects.
Actually, I thought the narration overdid the edginess and sarcasm. An instance that tone crossed a line was when the word “anorexic” was used as a weight descriptor. It wasn’t aimed at anyone but a hypothetical, but it sounded pejorative in nature. I don’t think it’s a good idea to introduce eating disorders in this jokey manner to children, who might have little to no knowledge on the subject. I would still recommend the book – after all it’s a single word – but I’d also recommend to anyone who’s getting the book for a child, to make sure this isn’t the only impression they have of EDs.
One of the things I’d like to praise is the magic system. The word magic system does sound kind of daunting, especially when applied to a middle grade novel, but the magic in Alcatraz is quite simple in nature. Characters have abilities, which would be considered flaws, but are used to their advantage. For example the protagonist can break everything he touches, and his grandfather has the ability to be always late, and it’s quite cool to see all the imaginative uses for these powers Sanderson has come up with.
I’d wholeheartedly advice you to listen to the dramatized adaptation of the novel if you can – it is very high quality production in which each character has a separate voice actors for each characters, and is quite the experience. It was probably one of the best audiobook experiences that I’ve had while reading.
Rating: 3/5
Would recommend for: the target age
If you’ve seen the title of this book you’d probably assume its aim to convince your child, or someone else’s child, or maybe you, that Librarians are secretly evil. That is not entirely correct – while, yes that is a concurringly possible, considering librarians are the bad guys here, I think the most likely thing any reader would conclude is that writers are sadists.
The story is told by a very self-aware narrator (an older version of the protagonist), who is quite aware of being an author and delights in torturing his readers with nasty literary devices like hooks, and cliffhangers, which he readily explains to the audience. The book is actually pretty clever – it plays around with literary conventions, has a simple but imaginatively used magic system, and the narrator’s voice is quite distinctive. However, I feel like at times the story was too preoccupied with being clever and missed some opportunities to expand on its other aspects.
Actually, I thought the narration overdid the edginess and sarcasm. An instance that tone crossed a line was when the word “anorexic” was used as a weight descriptor. It wasn’t aimed at anyone but a hypothetical, but it sounded pejorative in nature. I don’t think it’s a good idea to introduce eating disorders in this jokey manner to children, who might have little to no knowledge on the subject. I would still recommend the book – after all it’s a single word – but I’d also recommend to anyone who’s getting the book for a child, to make sure this isn’t the only impression they have of EDs.
One of the things I’d like to praise is the magic system. The word magic system does sound kind of daunting, especially when applied to a middle grade novel, but the magic in Alcatraz is quite simple in nature. Characters have abilities, which would be considered flaws, but are used to their advantage. For example the protagonist can break everything he touches, and his grandfather has the ability to be always late, and it’s quite cool to see all the imaginative uses for these powers Sanderson has come up with.
I’d wholeheartedly advice you to listen to the dramatized adaptation of the novel if you can – it is very high quality production in which each character has a separate voice actors for each characters, and is quite the experience. It was probably one of the best audiobook experiences that I’ve had while reading.