Book Review: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

Book Description:

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.

Book Review:

I wanted to like this book. I really did. When I got it from the library the librarians told me that Brandon Sanderson was a really popular author. We chose it for book club, and since I love Middle Grade Fiction I thought this would be awesome. And if you take the story apart, it was pretty good. The problem was reading it through all together. The only reason I finished it at all was because I didn't finish the last book for book club and felt guilty :) However, when we talked about the book I could open it up to just about anywhere and say, "Oh, ya, that was a funny part." or "I agreed with this part." I just found that the "authors" commentary about author's was really annoying. Especially in every chapter. Only one person in my book club thought it was an okay read, and she's a writer. Maybe you need to have writing skills to appreciate this. Maybe you have to be a nine year old male. Maybe I've lost my inner child, but I really struggled with this book. I find it hard to believe that there is another one, and I'm almost tempted to read it to see if Alcatraz continues on his author rant and his, "I told you I wasn't a good person". I can't imagine another book like that, although I couldn't imagine it this time either.

So the skinny is: the title of the book it awesome and grabbing. The content of the book is half and half. If you read it I would suggest skipping the commentary that mostly happens at the beginning of each chapter. Just dive into the story.

Has anyone else read it? What did you think about it?



Title: Alcatraz Verses the Evil Librarians
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Published: October 2007
ISBN: 0439925509 
Source: My library