Book Review - Clive Barker's Abarat

Author: Clive Barker

Candy Quackenbush is a seemingly ordinary girl who lives in the boring Chickentown, USA. One day she starts scratching at the surface of her dull town and scratches open a doorway into a fantastic world. The ordinary girl from the ordinary town falls head-over-heels into the magical land of Abarat - a world pulled from the depths of Clive Barker's imagination.

If you've ever read anything by Clive Barker you know that he has an imagination so full of strange sights, and stranger people, that it's amazing his head doesn't fly away. He's poured his imagination, and four years of his own artwork, into creating the first book of The Books of Abarat and it's a blast to read.

Abarat: The Story

Candy Quackenbush quickly goes from getting yelled at by her 'rents, to meeting a friendly man with eight heads. She is quickly swallowed alive by The Abarat and ends up running across the 25 islands, (there's one for every hour of the day, plus an extra one) meeting talking cats, giant moths and villains who live and breathe nightmares. As she runs for her life she finds out more about the incredible world she's stumbled into and what it means to her future.

Abarat, the first book in what promises to be an incredible series from the master of weird, Clive Barker, is a fantastic journey that's well worth reading. The sights and sounds of The Abarat are astounding, the characters are incredible and the villains utterly creepy. Clive Barker has written something that could become the next Harry Potter, but for slightly older kidz. Check out Candy Quackenbush's adventures in The Abarat - you won't be disappointed.

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