My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Maya is an artist forever looking for inspiration that might give her some form of creativity for her painting. When she discovers a magical easel her whole world is turned upside down. Within its powers there seems to be nightmarish scenarios as well as unlimited successes. The easel is called the Enigmatic Easel by a man known as Idris who is a Dreamweaver. She encounters him on entering a door in a dark alley. It is when she notices the strange design on the door, described as ‘enigmatic’ in the novel’s narrative, that I first had a problem reading the rest of the story. The word ‘enigmatic’ is repeatedly used throughout the book to describe events and objects. I counted almost two hundred altogether and there were a few other words, like potential, tapestry, incredible, unique and mesmerizing, that came up too many times so that it made the tale somewhat tedious in places. The cliché used to describe weeping as ‘tears welling’ was also a little overdone. I felt sure that occasionally other expressions or synonyms could have been found to spare the reader, and maybe improve writing style at the same time.
Idris tells Maya about the easel’s ability to search the subconscious mind and turn dream images into real paintings. Maya’s desire to use the Enigmatic Easel for her own artistic work, be it ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in some way, is at the heart of the story. There were many new and original ideas in this book and I found a lot of it quite intriguing; and what a great front cover! Overall The Mind’s Canvas was quite interesting but it failed to really grab my attention.
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