Halloween Library by Caitlin Betsy Bell – Unknown Manufacturer – 1000 pieces

For such an adorable image, I was surprised at how much I wanted to quit working on this assembly before it was finished. But because I kept changing my mind about whether or not to keep going, it eventually got to the point where finding each piece got quicker and quicker; and by then there was no way I was going to let this cutesy little puzzle beat me!

Oddly there was no puzzle brand name anywhere on the box that I could find. If there was one, I’d be telling you to pass this brand up and that your puzzle budget is better spent elsewhere. The pieces are thin, with a plain cardboard backing that had many hanging chads. The fit was odd, loose and spongy, and even when you found the correct piece you weren’t always sure whether or not it was placed properly. The image reproduction was good, but the finish was overly shiny – and with such a dark image it was a giant pain in the butt to work with under indoor lighting. Overall, if you can’t already tell I was unhappy with the quality of this puzzle.

When I bought this puzzle I think I was taken in by the quality of the box if you can believe it. The box is sturdy and well made and feels premium – almost like a Pomegranate box. I saw a cute Halloween image, felt the gorgeous box, and stopped paying attention. I should have kept looking and reading to be sure it was worth it. I know better now, and hopefully won’t make that mistake again.

Halloween being my favorite holiday, it was a little bit upsetting to be let down by this puzzle, but in the end I got what enjoyment I could out of it, and was proud of myself for completing the entire image. Yay me!

I sorted by color, and worked the puzzle in the same way; started with purple, then green, dark orange, light orange, and white. Once that was done what was left were about 200-300 pieces that were black or this ugly greenish-gray color…

The choice to have the cats, bats, and shelves all the same color just about had me pulling out my very gray hair! In this small section you can see how difficult that color choice made the assembly. Yikes. Double yikes. It ramped up the difficulty level of the puzzle by quite a few points in my opinion. Loved the rest of the palette, but I sure did wish at the very least that the kitties had been some other color.

I very much wanted to like this puzzle because the image makes me smile and I love Halloween, but the poor quality and difficulty level had me almost giving up on it. Even with the less than stellar quality it was enjoyable in the beginning working with the brighter colors, and at the very end I was proud of myself that I kept going when it got rough.

If you see this puzzle out there in the world be warned – it’s harder than it looks, and it’s one of those fly-by-night companies that don’t even have a brand name so they didn’t seem to put much into producing a well made puzzle.