I'm in two minds about this. I love the art - the weird, fantastic images all layered on top of each other like collages. I love that the book uses art, and drawing, as a vehicle for learning writing and creativity. I love that there's so much detail in the images - I even spotted what looked like a kiwi on several pages! - and that welter of fascinating visual detail, all the cephalopods and anglerfish and so on. Fonts shifted all the time, and I liked the sense of instability that gave as well... although a little more legibility seriously wouldn't have gone astray, the number of times I had to guess and puzzle out some of the handwritten scrawls bordered on the frustrating.

Anyway, for the first half of the book I was thinking this was going to be a four star read, surely, but then in the second half the writing exercises started. And look, I understand that this is a book designed to help teach writing, and that it is directed towards beginners. BUT. But. These are hands down some of the most tedious writing exercises I have ever come across in my life, and if I had learned creative writing this way I wouldn't have learned it for long. Granted, every writer learns in their own way - this is clearly not mine - but how such vivid, delightful art segues into such horrid, pedestrian exercises is beyond me.