Ik had veel goeds over dit boek gehoord en toen het werd uitgekozen als Foreign Fantasy boek voor April 2024 door mijn RL-leesclub was dat een reden om erin te beginnen. Ik heb het in het Engels gelezen en ook nog een moeilijk soort Engels voor mij. Het heeft mij dan ook best lang gekost om het te lezen, maar dat was absoluut de moeite waard.
Het is het verhaal van Livira en Evar, een meisje en een jongen die elkaar nog nooit hebben gezien maar verbonden zijn door een boek. Hun omzwervingen brengen hen soms kortstondig bij elkaar. En iedere keer dat dat gebeurt zijn ze meer van elkaar onder de indruk. Dan komt er een oorlog die alles kan vernietigen.
Ik heb vooral het gevoel overgehouden dat oorlogen geen goede en geen slechte mensen kent. Alleen slechte ideeën van machthebbers waar hun volk voor moet boeten.
Het verhaal had voor mij iets korter gemogen, maar het einde had erg onverwachte wendingen en zeker de laatste 150 bladzijdes vond ik erg goed. Ik kan niet wachten op deel 2. ( )

Evar and Livira are both living in a prison. Evar's is a big library full of knowledge, but with all the exits closed shut. He dreams of being able to walk out one day and experience the things he could only read about. Livira feels trapped on the dusty plains that are her home, living the same day over and over, fighting to survive the harsh conditions.

"After a few turns the reassuring resistance told her that the bucket had filled. Every time she carried out the task a small part of her held its breath, thinking that one day there would be no resistance. One day the water would simply not be there. An even smaller part of her hissed its disappointment when the turn of the handle revealed that new weight. When the water was gone there would be a change. Not a good change. But a change nonetheless. And sometimes, in the dark of the night with the hollow sounds of the Dust all around and the bright stars cold in their heaven, sometimes what scared Livira more than the water running out was that the water would not run out and that this would be her life."

They both look for their way out in the library, trying to solve its mysteries and finding a way towards each other.

Let me start with the main characters. While I enjoyed following both of them, Livira definitely left a bigger impression on me. She is so well-written that I could predict what she was going to do in a certain situation. I wouldn't have thought I would fall so for a character that is neither a magic user nor a trained fighter, but I suppose she does have a soul of a warrior. She can seem a bit reckless, but she is just so focused on her goals that she doesn't care about the risks.

As for the side characters. There are definitely some well-developed ones, but I felt that some of the characters that were supposed to be important to our main characters stood a bit too much in the background and I never got a chance to get to know them that well.

The setting of this book is very far from classical, medieval fantasy. The world outside has been turned to dust. The human cities are being attacked by a different and bestial race. Their only hope of surviving being the library, which could give them strong enough weapons to fight off the threat. The knowledge is all there; the problem is finding the right books while navigating the grand, mysterious, and dangerous library. And maybe the answer is different from the one they are looking for.

"People don’t want truth. They say that they do but what they mean is that they want the truth to agree with them. Take ninetynine books that say one thing and one that says the opposite. If that opposite was what the customer was hoping to hear, they’ll put their stock in the single volume."

The story is full of mystery and discovery. The first two-thirds of the book don't reveal much and I must say I wasn't getting that impressed, but once the first big reveal drops, it just keeps on coming and it's well worth the wait. The way things fell together was very satisfying and very emotional. While most mysteries have been revealed, there is definitely more to uncover in the following installments and I can't wait to get my hands on them.

This book combines an amazing story with well-developed characters and an original setting. It ticks all the boxes.

I received an ARC for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. ( )

Good book. Very mysterious. All the various plot points are so disconnected that it feels like magical realism at first. Enough time travel loops to make my brain hurt. Undecided about reading the second book. ( )

"To discover that you can read in a language you never knew existed is a surprise. To be instructed to stop reading, in person, in that language, on the first page of a book, is perhaps an even greater one."

A library seems like a great place to hunker down with all that's going on in the outside world. Especially one this large and magical. I mean, it's so large that somewhere is apparently always burning and most aren't even aware! It was my favourite part of the book and I would absolutely love to be able to explore it and all its secrets. I loved Livira but found myself not quite as interested in Evar (which surprised me because I usually love libraryish characters). The book started off strong but I found myself losing some interest towards the end before things picked up for the ending (well, not really the ending ending since there will be a sequel) ( )

I certainly enjoyed the world building and characters in this story about a never ending library that is served by librarians and their automaton assistants. I think if it had been about 200 pages shorter I would not have started to feel the struggle to finish the story. To me, at least, the story was certainly not fast paced but that did allow for some amazing world building. I will definitely be reading the next in the series but I will need to put a few books in between having read this one and the next. ( )