Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War by Clive Barker (4/5 stars)

This is the second Abarat book by Clive Barker and starts shortly after where the last one left off. I listened to this book on audio book and, like audio book of Abarat, the audio book was very well done.

Once again we follow Candy on her efforts to elude Christopher Carrion. Candy bumps into a cast of great new quirky characters as she tries to flee Carrion’s minions. John Mischief and crew are still trying to find Fennigan Hob. Will Christopher Carrion be able to bring about Permanent Midnight? What is Candy Quackenbush’s real identity? These are all things that are visited in this book.

This is a great book, it is very creative, and still reminds me a bit of Alice in Wonderland. This book is definitely written by a horror author; there is a sort of cloud of evil or despair over the story as you read it. While this is a great book, really young children would probably find it too scary and some of the ending fight scenes are pretty-darn gory.

I really love Barker’s bad guys. I just can’t emphasize enough how much depth the bad guys have. Especially with Christopher Carrion; you can never figure out if he is really bad to the core or if maybe he was just born into a bad family. The ending surprised me a bit, as the whole mystery surrounding Candy didn’t end up exactly how I thought it would.

There were a couple things that really disappointed me; this book still had a very open ending. There is a lot in Abarat that needs to be resolved at the close of the book. That was very disappointing to me since I haven’t seen (or heard of plans for) another Abarat book. I didn’t like how it ended for Candy’s mother either. I guess I just have to live with that since Barker seems more about realism than happy endings. I was also curious as to why Rojo Pixler and the Commexo kid weren’t mentioned much in this book. In the last book Rojo looked like a big contender for a parallel bad guy; that was dropped in this book.

All the above being said; this was still a very good book and a great follow-up to Abarat.

Abarat by Clive Barker (5/5 stars)

This is the first children's book I have ever read by Clive Barker. I know that he is much more well known for his works of horror. However, I was very impressed by this book.

I listened to this book on audio book. The audio book was very well done. I think the guy who read the audio book must be the same person who read Stephen King's Dark Tower series on audio book. At least they sound very similar since I keep getting flashbacks to when I listened to the Dark Tower; maybe it is just that Clive Barker and Stephen King have a somewhat similar writing style. The only bad thing about listening to this on audio book is that I missed out on all the neat color pictures. I have the paper version at home so I still got to see the pictures, just not while I was reading the book.

The tone of this book reminded me a lot of Alice in Wonderland and is, initially, a similar premise. Candy Quackenbush lives in Chickentown, MN and, during an assignment for school to write a paper on interesting things in Chickentown (a decidedly uninteresting town), runs into a mystery concerning a man who committed suicide in a hotel room. A strange nautical device is found in the dresser drawer of this hotel room. Candy finds herself obsessing about the symbols on the device. Candy is fed up with her boring life in Chickentown, her beaten down mother, and her abusive father. After a particularly bad scene in class at school, where Candy gets sent to the principals office, Candy decides to just leave school and go walking. She finds herself in a vast prairie outside of Chickentown. While there she runs into an 8 headed man, John Mischief, and ends up helping him to light the lighthouse in the prairie (which Candy thought was an abandoned building). Following some crazy events Candy finds herself swept off to Abarat and swept into a crazy adventure there.

This was a really great book. It is wildly imaginative and full of non-stop action. I loved the way Candy accepted her adventures with ease (since *anything* is better than Chickentown). I also loved the numerous quirky characters that Candy ran into along the way. Candy seems to have a knack for getting people's attention and getting drawn into trouble. There are tons of interesting good and neutral characters in this book. There are also some very interesting villains. The villians in this book are particularly special. There are numerous levels of evil, making you wonder who the *real* villain is. All of the villains have a lot of depth to them, you can see multiple sides to their character. This makes them seem somehow less ultimately evil but more scary and unpredictable.

The description in the book is wonderful. The plotline rolls along gracefully taking Candy from one adventure to the next. Even though many different characters are introduced and interact with Candy, none of it seems forced.

The only disappointment I had with this book was that I thought that the storyline with John Mischeif didn't get much closure; I am sure this storyline will be revisited in the next book. I am also curious as to what is happening back in Chickentown; does Candy's mother know she is missing?

This was a great book. I would read it to slightly older children though since at times it is very violent and it deals with issues of suicide and torture at points. Great book, I am excited to read the next one.