I heard about this on a YouTube channel and reserved a copy at my library. It was quite popular so I waited awhile. If you are familiar with my blog or channel, you will know that books about books are my genre kryptonite. This is slated to be the first in a series, and it sets up well for the next one. We follow Jess Brightwell, a street urchin under the thumb of his corrupt book-smuggling father. When his father deems him of no further use at procuring outlawed tomes, he sets up a new scheme to get Jess employed in The Great Library. In this world, the library disseminates information and literature through blank slates, and the personal ownership of books is expressly forbidden unless one has scholar-type privileges. What follows is an adventurous journey of Jess and his classmates as they are slated with protecting volumes in a war-torn area. Secrets abound and the road is fraught with peril type of thing. It seems Caine drew influences from the classic book Fahrenheit 451, as well as Harry Potter. Harry Potter in the sense that the students had personality traits similar to Harry's crew.
Caine explores troubled relationships between parents and children- particularly how our failures and insecurities can transfer and burden our kids. I was happy that these characters had each other, because most of their parents were the pits. There were predictable elements and some overdone scenes near the end, but I was relieved this book didn't suffer from poor writing. I loved the automatons guarding the library and the ideas presented in general.
Oddly, I don't have a lot to say about this story even though I really enjoyed myself while reading it. I'm bummed that the second installment won't be released until July 2016! I liked the evolution of the small romance, it developed tastefully and realistically (well, as realistically as possible considering the setting.) I thought it was cool that the author included a playlist of music that inspired her when she wrote. I think this is an absorbing tale for anyone who enjoys secret societies and bookish ephemera, and is a truly fun story about the danger of imagination and the difficulty of enacting change (in general, but particularly in institutions). Great for literature-loving folks! Nice, easy read.
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