Reviews

Just a solid read. I always enjoy books that discuss censorship and fear-mongering so a book with the sub-heading "you shall not suffer a librarian to live" immediately caught my interest. I had a good time following our protagonist in her journey trying to balance her natural curiosity and her life long fear of literature.

I didn't enjoy the call backs to our time (as this books take place in a far future) as it pulled me out of the book sometimes.

kleonard's review

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1.0

In a world where reading is forbidden, a librarian is a hunted man. Ok, so far, so good. But then we add in a very stereotypically sassy teen from the ruling family, stereotypically corrupt rulers, stereotypically fierce warriors, and a bunch of jokes so bad that they ruin the mood of the entire book, and you get this. It's a bit of a mess, really, Is it a serious SFF novel? The aforementioned terrible jokes--through which we're supposed to understand that the earth of the novel is the future of our own earth (actually, the earth of the novel is a part of our earth that broke away or blew up or something and is now a flat chunk of land orbiting what's left of earth. There's a pointless series of flat earth jokes through the whole book. Like I said, messy.)--make it feel silly, like a Pratchett novel without the cleverness. Is it a parable about literacy? Maybe? The people who can and do read are reading books of our earth--Bradbury, Dumas--in an overt gesture from the author that he's writing about the same things that they did, or is borrowing from them. About tech? Maybe? There's a killer robot from outer space. About politics and war? Maybe? There's a lot of "i must kill you" that becomes "I could never kill you" in just moments, not convincingly written. The characters aren't particularly interesting or memorable, and I got really tired of the teen protagonist swearing she'd do one thing and then abandoning it and then swearing to do another thing and abandoning it, so....it was tiresome reading. Thanks to this review, you don't need to do it!

jakegray's review

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adventurous hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

magzz's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

alirenreads's review

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

4.25

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