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aftanith's review against another edition
This is another book I picked up for a dime a million years ago and never got around to reading. And after finally sitting down to read a couple chapters... not reading this was probably the right way to go.
Since I have so many other books to get through and only so much time to spend on the project, I'm not going to be reading any more of this one. The two chapters that I did read were, uh, not great; the humor was really cringey, the main character was an odd little butthead who was neither funny nor sympathetic, and the story was just in general very written--the kind of prose that makes the reader painfully aware that what they're reading is coming from the mind of a elderly man who only thinks he's successfully pulling off the voice of a modern preteen boy. (I mean, really, what kind of teen boy in 1995 references his crush by way of Greta Garbo? C'mon!)
Obviously, there's some possibility that the book dramatically improves at some point after the chapters I read; if that is the case, I will not be discovering it for myself. What little I did read of this book did nothing to convince me that the rest of it was worth my investment, and so it's going to the top of my 'for eBay' pile as of now.
As I did read so few chapters, however, I will be leaving this review unrated.
Since I have so many other books to get through and only so much time to spend on the project, I'm not going to be reading any more of this one. The two chapters that I did read were, uh, not great; the humor was really cringey, the main character was an odd little butthead who was neither funny nor sympathetic, and the story was just in general very written--the kind of prose that makes the reader painfully aware that what they're reading is coming from the mind of a elderly man who only thinks he's successfully pulling off the voice of a modern preteen boy. (I mean, really, what kind of teen boy in 1995 references his crush by way of Greta Garbo? C'mon!)
Obviously, there's some possibility that the book dramatically improves at some point after the chapters I read; if that is the case, I will not be discovering it for myself. What little I did read of this book did nothing to convince me that the rest of it was worth my investment, and so it's going to the top of my 'for eBay' pile as of now.
As I did read so few chapters, however, I will be leaving this review unrated.
mistwithanie's review against another edition
3.0
****Part of POPSUGAR 2015 Reading Challenge: A book from your childhood
plexippa's review against another edition
4.0
The 13th Floor is not so much a ghost story as it is a story of time-travelling adventure. Twelve-year-old Buddy and his sister Liz (a grown-up lawyer) lost their parents to a plane crash and are about to lose their house in order to pay off their father's debts when Buddy, acting on an old family legend, calls on one of their ancestors, the fierce pirate Captain Crackstone. A ghostly voice on their answering machine directs Liz and Buddy to the 13th floor of an office building. Once they each find their way there, they tumble through time to the year 1692. It will take all of their cleverness to get themselves back home again. A fantastic historical adventure, even if the book's present time feels a little dated now.
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