Book Review: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz Smedry is like a lot of other modern-day American orphans. He gets shuttled from foster family to foster family. No couple hangs on to him because he is extremely accident-prone. As the story opens, he tries to make a simple dinner and winds up burning down the kitchen. This happens on his thirteenth birthday. He also gets a package in the mail. It contains the only inheritance from his true parents--a bag of sand. He's a bit underwhelmed but his life is about to change, not necessarily for the better. Someone claiming to be his grandfather shows up and tries to take him away, which seems more appealing because a case worker has shown up to take Alcatraz...at gunpoint. The gun falls apart when the case worker tries to shoot Alcatraz. The boy flees with the grandfather, who explains that they both have magical powers and are involved in a secret war against evil librarians who are trying to take over the world, mostly through spreading misinformation, but also through magical powers. Alcatraz's accident-proneness is actually his magical power that he can use to fight the librarians (and why the gun fell apart). The grandfather's power is being late, like being late for bullets meant to kill him. The bullets always hit the space in front of him. They start an adventure searching for the sand which has been stolen by the evil librarians.

Alcatraz is introduced to this magical world and the readers are taken on a wild and humorous ride. The book actually starts with first-person narration by the sarcastic Alcatraz, with a lot of humorous digressions about the two different worlds (mundane and magical) and about the way authors are manipulative and trying to addict readers with narrative devices like unresolved dramatic introductions or cliffhanger endings to chapters. Sanderson provides a lot of entertaining humor and an interesting magical system based on glass and lenses. The book is very delightful and the start of a series that I will keep reading.

Recommended.