The Library Of The Unwritten

Somehow, once you've experienced The Invisible LIbrary (Genevieve Cogman), then all these other books about librarians seem to be pale and worthless copy-cats.I have put this one down five times so far: I keep trying to read on, but it's just not that good. The idea is derivative - oh, look, a feisty librarian with sidekicks - and it features an annoying, unnecessary and badly-phrased lesbian relationship. Why do contemporary authors seem to think that it's compulsory to have a same-sex thing going on? And this one doesn't make sense, if the Bea "character" (in quotes because she doesn't appear to actually have any character at all) (or is that the point? She was badly written?) is supposed to be a what Claire ("the Librarian" ) wanted herself to be, then surely Claire having a lesbian relationship with her is, sort of, err, incestuous?I honestly don't know which came first (ie who is copying who), this or the Invisible Library, nor do I particularly care: I've bought, read and re-read all of the Invisible Library books, but this one is leaving me quite cold. I can't visualise Claire at all: Leto appears to be Kai but younger and more annoying: the only one worth following is Brevity, and even there, I keep seeing her as a blue version of Trance Gemini from Andromeda.

The premise of the book is simple.There's a library, in Hell, for books that were never written (i.e. never started or never completed). There's a librarian. For some reason, the librarian is a human soul. And a librarian's assistant. For some reason, the library is part of Hell, but functionally independent.Normally, the librarian's job is to ensure demons who visit the library act with decorum - and to ensure that the frisky, unwritten books don't spawn a character who goes wandering off causing chaos.Here, the librarian, Claire, begins with a problem. A book has spawned a Hero. Who's gone to find the author and convince her to finish the book. The Hero, called Hero, becomes another character, as does a newly minted Demon Leto, who joins Claire, the Hero, the Assistant on some merry japes.At the same time, however, Heaven's angry. A bit of contraband has been brought to Heaven by a newly dead soul. The contraband is part of a book. Heaven's agents want to find it. And so too do the forces of Hell.Only Claire, a book-lover, and her team can solve this crisis. They need to find this contraband book. And they find that the universe of afterlives is full of complex, witty, clumsy, dull and untrustworthy souls all pursuing their own agenda.This book started well. I got the comprehension of the universe really quickly, and some of the scenes in the Library are beautiful. Claire is the beating heart of the book - and she functions perfectly well as a character for about 3/4 of the book before losing some depth. For some reason, knowable only to the author, it becomes important that - suddenly - she's always been a Lesbian. There's a minor plot twist which hangs off this, a plot twist that really derails the narrative, in my opinion, perhaps because the local has moved, inexplicably, from the Afterlife to Malta.The other characters lack depth. This is funny in the case of Hero, who is designed to be a 1D character aspiring to be 2D. But it's not funny for the Assistant, for Leto the Demon, or for the other characters who appear. I made the investment to care about them, but the investment didn't pay off.The denouement, when it came, disappointed. A couple of plot twists which deeply affected the minor characters and which could have been hugely emotional were delivered flat, resulting in a 'huh, so what?' response. The epic battle at the end kind of lost me like a bad superhero movie (and then he hit her, bang, kapow, and then she hit him and he fell, and she fell.... that kind of thing).But maybe I was not getting the most out of it because, despite all the above, the book had compelled me to read it until 3am. And that can only happen if the author has some skill, and if the book is decent.So, three stars. I wish it had been better. But I'd happily recommend it to a bibliophile looking for something to read who isn't expecting the moon.

The Invisible Library meets Good Omens meets Harry Potter meets Inkheart.There's a good 220 page book in here buried in 440 pages. The basic concept of a library of unwritten books is clever but that is buried under a deluge of irrelevancies. Too many flat characters and pointless, plotless elements.I only struggled through to the end because I was curious to see how the narrative would wind up.

There's a 2 star review of this by R. Cassidy, with which I almost totally agree. I also had a problem visualising Claire; at one point she was described as having "nut-brown" skin. Well, walnuts are very pale brown, and chestnuts are dark brown, so that wasn't much help. The idea is also very derivative of the Invisible Library series, but not as good. I'm giving it 3 stars because I was mildly entertained, and there were one or two good ideas. Don't think I'd be rushing out for any sequel though.

A phenomenal novel which builds a fascinating world around great characters. Definitely made me feel a little guilty about all the stories i have started writing and never finished. Absolutely cannot wait for the next one in the series to come out. One of my truly great reads of the year!