I Read Banned Books by Laura Korzon – Mudpuppy – 500 pieces
You’re damn right I do! In fact, when I do a puzzle like this or read about banned books, it only makes me want to read them even more; I wonder if those book-banning d**che-bags understand that at all. Probably not, that would take critical thinking skills, logic, and comprehension.
This was a fantastic puzzle with very good quality that went together quite quickly – in fact it was almost too easy and I found myself wishing it was 750 or 1000 pieces to make it last a bit longer.
Although I don’t care for the backing Mudpuppy uses, and wish there was more than one piece shape, it was otherwise a very good quality puzzle. The fit was excellent, and the image reproduction was stellar. In fact, the fit was so good that….
I don’t know why it makes me so happy to be able to take pictures like this, but hey, if it makes me happy to take a stupid picture of a puzzle standing up – why not? It’s a little thing, and it really does make me smile. 😁
On the back of the small poster that comes with the puzzle is a little blurb about each of the books with one or two sentences describing what they’re about. A couple of the books I’d never heard of, and a few I’ve heard of but haven’t read. Finding out what they’re about has made me want to read them all. I’ve only read three of the nine books shown, but I’d definitely be interested in reading the rest of them.
This really was a fun, good quality puzzle. If it looks like it would be your pile of pieces, go for it! It’s very highly recommended – two stacks of banned books 📚📚 and two thumbs up! 👍👍
*Heartfelt and special thanks to my dear friend and fellow Puzzle/PADS Posse member Penny for this lovely birthday gift. I absolutely adored it! 💖*
This collage of horror book covers was so much more entertaining to assemble than the Stephen King covers puzzle that I posted last week. The quality was much better, which made for a more satisfying experience – loved this one!
I usually tell you how many books of those shown that I’ve read; and you’ll be able to tell that horror isn’t exactly my genre when I let you know that I’ve only read 4 out of the 55 books shown. Yikes, it make me seem like an illiterate troglodyte, doesn’t it?
Whatever. Even if I am, my mom said I was adorable and my family loves me – so there! 😜
Typical Re-marks quality; random cut with a variety of piece shapes, good image reproduction, very good fit, and a slightly shiny finish. Pretty good, all around – and it made for a great assembly that went quite quickly.
I haven’t read this book, but I loved the cover – doesn’t it seem perfect for Halloween? Spooky!
Haven’t read any H.P. Lovecraft either, but I know he’s quite popular in the horror/sci-fi genre; and I’ve even seen an episode of Supernatural about him. Plus, look at that creature – yikes! I think it’s called Cthulhu. Do you think Mr. Lovecraft just banged his face onto the keyboard to come up with that name?
Now this one I HAVE read, it’s by my favorite author; it’s one of my favorites of his too – though I wouldn’t classify it as a horror novel. Suspense, sure. Thriller, yep. But not really horror in my opinion. Still, it’s a great book.
I enjoyed this puzzle from the first piece to the last, and highly recommend it if you can find it. When I purchased it the cashier told me this particular puzzle was selling out very quickly. No wonder, it was such fun!
What better puzzle for this month? October is the month with the absolute best candy holiday ever – Halloween! If you think it looks pretty easy, I was right there with you until the sorting started; but once I saw the pieces I knew it would be quite a difficult assembly. And it was, but I’m pretty darn proud of myself for completing it.
The quality of this puzzle was amazing, and really I enjoyed working with it. The cut is actually a modified ribbon cut (Cobble Hill calls it random/quirky), with quite a few interestingly shaped pieces that made it extremely entertaining to assemble. The fit was excellent; entire sections could be picked up easily to move them around. The finish is matte which helps with the glare caused by artificial overhead lighting. There was quite a bit of puzzle dust, but that seems to be an increasing problem with every company lately. I don’t hold it against them, because it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the assembly for me.
The caramels were the first thing I assembled, it was easy to find the pieces because they had the shiny wrapping on them. I used to love eating these but I haven’t had one for a very long time. I have specific memories of my sisters and I sitting around the table unwrapping entire bags of these so that mom could melt them to make caramel apples in the fall – how we loved eating them! There was a huge apple orchard in our hometown, and we’d all go to pick apples in the fall. Some of them turned into homemade apple pies, some became canned filling for pies and crumbles to enjoy in the middle of winter, and the best ones ended up as caramel apples that were made with love by our momma – and they were so unbelievably good. 🍎💖
This was another section that was easy (somewhat) to find and assemble. When hubby came into the puzzle room to kiss me goodnight he pointed to this section and in particular the candies with the sugary beads on them and said “those are sooooo good!”. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the flat square-shaped candies anywhere before. Have you? What do they taste like?
The jelly candies at the bottom and top of this picture were easy to sort, but not as easy to assemble. With all the shine on many of the candies it was difficult to know what piece was next. The shine looks white, but it could be shiny where the pieces connect and your brain tricks you into thinking you need a certain color, but actually you don’t. It made for a somewhat difficult assembly, but I enjoyed the challenge of it.
Once I had put together each bowl of candy that was relatively easy to find, I resorted to sorting by color and putting things together that way. When I got to the end, the only pieces left were red, yellow, and the white of the bowls; those pieces were then sorted by shape to finish it up. It wasn’t to difficult to finish it, but getting there certainly was more of a challenge than I bargained for.
An enjoyable, but definitely difficult puzzle. If you’ve got a sweet tooth, beware. It isn’t as easy as it looks!
Stephen King Books (?) – Unknown Brand – 1000 pieces
This puzzle from an unknown brand had terrible quality, but the collage image was still entertaining to put together. Entertaining or not though, it isn’t one that I would recommend – I just couldn’t get past the thin pieces and terrible fit and the frustration of trying to move pieces around that crumble and fall apart like they weren’t even connected.
Although I searched every inch of the box, I could find no brand name at all. It says “Jigsaw Puzzle” and “1000 pieces” and there is a grid that has letters in it but that seems to be showing that this puzzle is lettered on the back to help with sorting and assembly. There’s no title for the puzzle either, so I just went with the obvious. This seems to be a quickly made puzzle to take advantage of the increased demand during the pandemic.
The pieces are unbelievably thin, and the fit was quite loose. The image reproduction was slightly blurry in some places and the finish was quite shiny. All the pieces were ballerinas (2 prong, 2 hole) in two different shapes – one thinner that was assembled vertically, and one thicker that was placed horizontally. There was also an extra piece, and one missing; usually both problems in one puzzle are from pieces sticking in the die that is used to cut the shapes. The nicest thing I have to report about this puzzle is that it lies flat, that’s the extent of this puzzle’s virtues.
You can see in the first picture both the extra piece, and how incredibly thin the pieces of this puzzle are. The second picture is showing the first section to be assembled. I used the letters on the back to both sort and assemble this puzzle. Normally I don’t do that, but there are so many words repeated (Stephen King, obviously) and so much darkness in the image that with the frustration of the pieces and how they fit together I don’t think I would have put this puzzle together any other way.
Carrie is the only Stephen King book I’ve ever read, and to be honest I really didn’t care for it. I was a teenager at the time, perhaps that was part of it, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I do love the look of this book cover though. 😲
Richard Bachman is one of several nom de plumes (pen names) that Stephen King has used, so this is also a Stephen King novel. I’ve never heard of this book, but this seemed like the perfect picture to take for a puzzle posted near Halloween. Bloody and creepy!
I’ve learned in the past couple of years that if there is no brand name on a puzzle box that it is not worth my time. Just this week I was given a wooden puzzle for my birthday with no brand name on the box, and it was AWFUL. If the makers aren’t willing to tell you the brand name (or if there really isn’t a brand at all), it’s a hastily made puzzle without regard for quality, or your enjoyment of the assembly.
Real companies that put their name on a puzzle box are proud of their product, even if we aren’t always happy with their quality; those that don’t just aren’t worth it in my opinion. I’d rather have a Ceaco than a crap puzzle without a name.
The Dr. Seuss Collection – The Op/USAopoly – 1000 pieces
Of course I loved this one! Who can resist some Theodor Geisel? The first time I saw it online I immediately purchased it – even though my previous puzzles by USAopoly weren’t the best quality.
Didn’t care.
Had to have it.
I’m so glad I did!
The quality of this puzzle was much different than previous puzzles I’d assembled by USAopoly. The brand seems to now be The Op/USAopoly, and the improvement is quite significant. The pieces are thicker with a very good variety of shapes, have a linen-type paper on the front (somewhat like Cobble Hill) that gives the pieces a great hand-feel, and the fit was excellent.
The pieces were (for the most part) extremely easy to sort so I thought I’d do them line by line. But the orange of the ground in Fox in Socks was almost the exact same color as the orange background in Green Eggs and Ham. It was easiest to just assemble both orange sections at once rather than try to just put together Green Eggs and Ham. So once the line by line plan was out the window the OCD kicked in and I decided to assemble all the sections around the outside and leave The Cat in the Hat for the end.
My brain is weird, I know that. Having that little bit of a different section already assembled doesn’t seem like a big deal, but that’s not what my brain thought. It was a big deal and I had to change my plans in a way that made sense to my weird mind. I no longer question the eccentricity – I just embrace the peculiar and try to go with it. 😜🧠
I’ve always loved the story that Theodor Geisel was given a list of 250 words that were important for first graders to recognize and was challenged to write a book that children couldn’t put down. He came back with The Cat in the Hat. Even though he had already published many children’s books that were relatively popular, The Cat in the Hat became an international success because of it’s simplified vocabulary and the fact that it could be easily read by beginning readers.
My kids all love to read, and I credit Dr. Seuss books for much of that. They not only loved to read them on their own, but they also wanted them to be read aloud to them – of course that duty usually fell to mom. One Fish Two Fish and Fox in Socks were both favorites, and at one point I could recite both books in their entirety from memory having read them so often to my babies. 💕📚
This puzzle was passed along to my honorary grandson who ADORES puzzles, and he was so excited to assemble it that I got a picture from his mom just over three hours after I dropped it off – he completed this 1000 piece puzzle in just a few hours! His mom said he never moved from the table after I left, and didn’t even want to stop to eat lunch. My exact words to her were “Holy sh*t! It’s only been a few hours!” 😮
He was there in 2017 when we finally assembled the 40,320 piece Disney puzzle, here he is…
He loved puzzles even then, and we walked around the giant puzzle together and he took a few pieces out of the border and then put them back in so that he “helped” with it. It was so sweet! 💜 When he got home that day, he took the DVD cases from all the movies that they had at home and laid them out on the floor in the order that they were shown in the puzzle. His mom sent me a picture of that too, I wish I still had it!
When he completed the Dr. Seuss puzzle, he went and got all the books he had and laid them on top, in the same way as he put those cases together all those years ago. His mom sent me a picture of that too, and said “Just like your puzzle and the movies.” It was so sweet it was almost heartbreaking!
It makes my heart so happy that he loves puzzles as much as I do, and I thought it might make you smile today to hear this story. It certainly makes me smile! 😊💖
My Jigsaw Journal 