Reviews

As a librarian I am constantly trying to categorize books into a genre. Since I work in a middle school library, this task is relatively easy. After finishing this book, I am stumped by its genre, as it fits into LOTS of categories! This is primarily a fantasy novel centered around a girl named Carolyn. She is orphaned at the age of 8 and taken in by "Father" to live in a massive library that holds the secrets of the universe, quite literally. She and 12 other children, also taken in by Father, spend their days learning these secrets and studying "catalogs"on specific topics such as language, war, weapons, medicines, etc. Each librarian has their own task or topic to study in depth. When father goes missing, it is up to the children (all grown up by now) to locate him or risk another God taking over Earth. Fantasy is the last genre that I reach for, it usually bores me to tears as well as confuses me to no end! This book is different though! It has some horror in it, realistic relationship ideas, and also speaks to the idea of what a family is and how our place in a family might mean different things. The first 100 pages I spent thinking, "WTF is going on?," as it is very confusing. Keep at it though, as all your questions will be answered by the end! Well written and highly engaging novel by an author that I will be keeping my eyes on in the future! There are some fairly horrific things that happen in this book as well, so sensitive readers might need to beware! :)

untitledlullaby's review against another edition

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4.0

I really enjoyed the weirdness of the story but I think it suffered from tonal issues especially dealing with darker moments. It also suffered from too many people syndrome where characters got left out. Really enjoyed how this wrapped up though