I like the original Grimm fairytales, which is to say, I like fairytales that have a bit of darkness to them. So when I heard of Nightbooks, a story where a boy is captured by a witch and forced to tell her a scary story every night, I was intrigued. Plus, it’s Wyrd and Wonder month and I wanted to at least make the effort to read more fantasy.

Now, I’m not sure if this was inspired by One Thousand and One Nights because that book is referenced by name in Nightbooks, yet Alex doesn’t seem to know about it. Alex is a boy who loves horror, but as the book opens, he’s on his way to destroy his “Night Books”, his handwritten stories. But on the way to destroying his books, he hears his favourite movie playing and can’t help but stop to take a peek. One thing leads to another and Alex is trapped in the witch Natacha’s house, and his only companions are Yasmin, a fellow prisoner and Lenore, the witch’s familiar. Luckily, Natacha loves scary stories so as long as Alex keeps the stories coming, he gets to live.

Of course, I really liked this book! Alex is a great main character and I love his passion for scary stories, even though he doesn’t feel entirely comfortable showing it. His slow friendship with Yasmin was heartwarming and I enjoyed seeing the two characters open up to one another and develop a true friendship.

The plot moved along at a steady pace. I like that the book started with Alex getting captured by Natacha and then we slowly find out the backstories of the characters. It makes sense that everyone has a story, since this is a book about stories, and I like how even the character’s histories were used as part of the plot and not just for character development.

Since Alex is a writer, his stories can be found throughout the book, as he tells them to Natacha. To be honest, I didn’t find his stories, especially the first few, very scary. But that also makes sense because Alex is a child and his stories felt true to his age. I did think that the last two stories, which are the ones that he comes up with at the house, to be creepier than the first few, but they never got very scary for me.

Overall, I found this to be a very fun book. Alex, Yasmin, and even Natacha were great characters to follow and I really need to give a shoutout to Yasmin’s Middle East heritage, which informs how she speaks and what she can do. If you like a little bit of (middle grade appropriate) horror with your fantasy, then this may be the book that you’re looking for.