No One Leaves the Castle - Christopher Healy

Welcome to the second review in the Middle Grade Mega Awesome Super Fantastic Massive Review Spree! Although I will fully admit I'm cheating, this is NOT actually a review of the book, because I just started reading it. But I thought I would pivot and try out a "first thoughts" thing - going into a book with no knowledge about what to expect and sharing my initial reactions after the first few chapters. 

(And if you're thinking "Dewey, you're clearly doing this because you don't have a book ready to review and you're desperate," then first of all, how dare you? And second of all, yes, OBVIOUSLY. But necessity is the mother of invention, or whatever the saying is.)

So, let's see how this goes, shall we? I'll start us off on the same footing, going into this with equal information with which to form a first impression. Let's take a look at the book cover.

So, maybe a little spooky? Mysterious vibes, for sure. I picked this thinking it would maybe make a good semi-spooky book to add to my school library after I finished it, hopefully just in time for fall/Halloween. My students are always begging for more spooky books, so very first impression, this seems like a promising potential new option for them - probably not GENUINELY scary, but spooky, wandering-through-the-woods-late-at-night-with-nothing-but-the-light-of-the-moon-to-guide-you vibes.

In a complete reversal, based on the first couple pages, this actually seems like a tongue-in-cheek, funny take on what typically might be a spooky story. Case in point, our omniscient narrator:

"Unfortunately for Gribbinsnood Flornt, he was looking to get out of [a mystery].He was not a fan of mystery. Mystery went hand in hand with the Unknown, and Flornt was happiest when he knew exactly what would happen next. (Personally, I also love knowing things. It's the whole reason I became a narrator - narrators know everything.)"

I immediately highlighted that (with a removable tab, because I'm putting this in my school library. I only write in books I'm keeping for personal library), because it really tickled me. So...maybe not scary? Maybe a little cheeky and one-liner-y. This was further confirmed when "The Lilac," a 14-year-old girl trying to break into the bounty hunter game by hiring a fledgling bard to sing of her great deeds and convince people to hire her, contemplates the many pubs she has been inside, such as the Stumpy Boarhound and the Hairless Pidgeon, and then observes that as a general rule, "the stranger the name, the rowdier and more dangerous the pub." Again, not scary, although I will be stealing this general rule for my DnD campaign.

And speaking of DnD, while this book has moved pretty decidedly away from the "spooky" category for me, it DOES give me strong Dungeons & Dragons vibes, and I am very on board with that. I don't have quite as many students clamoring for these types of stories as I do for scary ones, but I ran a DnD class for a bunch of students last year, so several of them have gotten more interested in adventuring stories. Based on what I've read so far, I think they'll enjoy this one.