Customer Reviews

Everything Brain Strain Book: Over 400 Puzzles, Riddles, And Mind-Benders To Flex Your Mental Muscles (Everything: Sports and Hobbies)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love this book! I enjoy the range of different types of brain teasers and the range of difficulty within teaser groups. The "e" boxes every few pages deliver helpful tips, encouragement, or useful facts. Our family likes to challenge each other with brain teasers and this is a great resource. Recently we got hooked on the rebus puzzles and after working through the ones in the book we started making up ones of our own. This book sits out on the coffee table and is a great favorite of visitors--always gets a good conversation going. Using this book is a great way to keep your brain fit!

I haven't gotten very far into this book, but I've run across some really pointless exercises.

In one of them, you're asked which of four sentences don't belong.

I picked the one without any adjectives. Perfectly valid answer.

But NOOOOOOOOO. The answer was that the first three sentences started with A, B, and K. The same letters that begin the names of fruit: apple, banana, kiwi. The last sentence started with S. Which means there's no fruit that starts with S. Well, except maybe strawberry.

There was no ONE answer to this question. And the answer they supplied was wrong. I don't mind busting my butt trying to find an answer, but when all it boils down to is that you have to try to guess what the person who created the question was thinking, that is just ludicrous.

Makes you not want to waste your time on the rest of the book. Unfortunately I made some marks in the book, so couldn't return it.

This is not a professionally compiled book. I'd have given it one star, but I'm trying to be fair since I didn't get that far into the book.

I'm sure there's good stuff in it, but I'm not really that motivated to take part in an inside joke.

w a l
h - e
a - t
t

or, in rebus speak, what a let down

I have dipped in and out of Jakes web site for a couple of years now, and have always found teasers that are both challenging and funny. Regulars such as Mad_Ade, dumbell, mogmatt16, MrIxolite, Tissue, Datra16 (the list goes on), all have become almost real to me over time from reading their banter and reparte. The humour carried over into the tasers, although not all those who contribute do so with teasers.

When I picked up this book I expected wit and humour in the brain teasers. Instead I found badly copied and poorly reconstructed immitations of what is found on line.

I feel Jake has done those who have trusted him a great discredit.

This one is going stright to the second hand shop. It is just a shame there is no option for no stars.

I enjoy riddles and I have read a lot of riddle books. My general impression of riddle books is that they contain very few unique ideas. They usually just reword the same set of famous riddles that we are already familiar with.

To my delight, this book was quite different! There was not a single riddle in this book that I had previously heard. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the riddles were broken up into different categories (Math, Logic, Trivia, etc), which allowed me to jump straight to my favorites. I was also pleased with the quantity of puzzles, since you rarely find a riddle book with even a hundred puzzles. This book has over 400!

The riddles in this book are apparently collected from the authors website, which I have visited and have enjoyed. I recommend this book.