A review by tansy
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

adventurous dark mysterious

4.5

I really agonised over the stupid star rating for this one. It's really good! I snuck away from my desk to read it secretly at work! I think it has some problems with the way events hang together and I understand complaints about a) the amount of violence and b) the ending. For me, the violence was so over the top it became cartoonish and didn't bother me, and I thought the ending was brilliant. The pacing does dramatically change for the last quarter of the book, it deliberately slows down and becomes something else, and I was genuinely caught off guard by the final events. I think ultimately this is not going to be a book for everyone, but those people who love it will love it hard. I wish Scott Hawkins had published more fiction, I would have loved to see where he went next.