Book Review: The City of Dreaming Books

I basically picked this book up because of the cover. It's a book by a German author that has been translated to English. It's kind of difficult to describe this book. It's a little bit like Shel Silverstein meets The Phantom Tollbooth. It's an entirely different world with unknown creatures and places. It's almost TOO unknown. I like a good fantasy book as much as the the next gal, but I need some sort of "base." Something I can relate to. Once I got into the book it was pretty good. It's about this dinosaur who goes in search of an author who wrote what is supposedly the best piece of literature ever. He travels to Bookholm, the city of books, looking for someone who might point him in the direction of this author. While in Bookholm he runs into some crazy creatures and is eventually sent into the Catacombs of Bookholm - the scary domain of The Shadow King in which few ever return. While down there he encounters the legends he's read about and has to try to survive by learning who he can trust and who he needs to stay far, far away from.