Nightbooks by J.A. White

My name is Alex, and I've been imprisoned by a witch on the fourth floor of my apartment building. I've learned my notebook of nightmare stories is the only thing keeping me alive. The witch loves to hear evil tales, and she thinks I have dark thoughts like her. She says my stories also keep the apartment happy. What's that about? She's captured other kids before me, although I've only seen Yasmin. Yasmin is afraid to help, but I've found a hidden message from someone else who may have escaped. I need to figure out a way to freedom soon, because most of the stories in my notebooks have now been destroyed by little chompers. The witch is losing patience, and the apartment sometimes shakes like an earthquake. The secret behind the apartment may be the key to finding my way home.

This book was comparable to tales of Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. The main character's only chance for survival was to keep the antagonist hungry for more stories. However, unlike the Arabian Nights, the witch in this book wasn't going to have a miraculous change of heart. The author blended Alex's scary stories into the book's plot, and they were actually an important factor in resolving the problem. These stories were short and simple, but Alex used them as a tool. The book almost felt like a ghost story, without any ghosts, and that may have been due to the eerie apartment. It seemed to have a life of its own, and the witch was very concerned about keeping it happy. The secret behind the apartment provided some twists for the end and delayed the book's climax. The relationship between the witch and the apartment was a surprise, but I appreciated the irony of the story's climax. Overall, this book offered a creative contrast to other book's I've recently read, and it wasn't the first book in a series! Give it a shot if you like creepy books and writing creepy stories.