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The Librarian of Alexandria #1
The Library
With eternity ahead and all of man's knowledge at his fingertips, Daniel just wants out.
He was too young to have any expectations when he was dragged into the grand Library of Alexandria - a massive, magical catalog of all human knowledge. Too young to understand the responsibilities being foisted on him. Too young to know that he was to become the next Librarian.
He knows now.
As the boy named Daniel grows into the Librarian named Owl, he realizes the truth; the cage he’s caught in is beautiful, and filled with knowledge, but a cage nonetheless. With that realization is born a longing for freedom he can’t push aside.
Such longings can be used, though - and there are many who would seek power over the Librarian and Alexandria.
But how can he tell friend from foe when all he’s ever had was himself?
He was too young to have any expectations when he was dragged into the grand Library of Alexandria - a massive, magical catalog of all human knowledge. Too young to understand the responsibilities being foisted on him. Too young to know that he was to become the next Librarian.
He knows now.
As the boy named Daniel grows into the Librarian named Owl, he realizes the truth; the cage he’s caught in is beautiful, and filled with knowledge, but a cage nonetheless. With that realization is born a longing for freedom he can’t push aside.
Such longings can be used, though - and there are many who would seek power over the Librarian and Alexandria.
But how can he tell friend from foe when all he’s ever had was himself?
459 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 24, 2020
107 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Casey White
20 books77 followersCasey White lives in Michigan with her husband and the requisite herd of roaming cats. She splits her time - spending her days working the desk as a civil engineer, and her nights writing fiction ranging from fantasy to scifi and everything in-between.
Her stories tend towards the more personal - she favors first person or over-the-shoulder third person that matches punchy, fast-paced storytelling with ongoing internal dialogue.
Her fiction can be found at her website, listed above, or at the subreddit where she publishes her novels one chapter at a time - https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/
Her stories tend towards the more personal - she favors first person or over-the-shoulder third person that matches punchy, fast-paced storytelling with ongoing internal dialogue.
Her fiction can be found at her website, listed above, or at the subreddit where she publishes her novels one chapter at a time - https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 10, 2021
Take care of all the visitors
A mystical library and The Librarian who runs it, welcoming only a few guests at a time, and a few extras too. What could happen? This one took a while to get rolling for me. But the climax of the story pulled me in a few directions. Curious.
A mystical library and The Librarian who runs it, welcoming only a few guests at a time, and a few extras too. What could happen? This one took a while to get rolling for me. But the climax of the story pulled me in a few directions. Curious.
July 27, 2023
Index: ctrl + f:
Introduction: &
Bullet Time (Alpha): #
Dissection: =
Fix It AU (Beta): $
Conclusion: ^
Introduction: &
I’m reading “The Book That Wouldn’t Burn” by Mark Lawrence throughout July, and while I was chilling in the living room having my cup of coffee, a bookworm, literally, entered my brain.
And I wondered, “I could have sworn I read something similar to this book…What was it?”
1 hour later, an AI chatbot, a confused fiancé, and 2 coffees later, I had to manually search to find it on KU. The book?
“The Library” by Casey White.
Is it any good? It depends on whom you ask.
If you ask me? Eh. It's OK.
If you ask 13-year-old me? Probably, yes.
I wanted to like this book so badly, though the problem, like “Ninth Rain”, was the execution. Granted, White did miles better than Williams, but I’m not trying to pit a dragon against an owl.
I’ll explain more in Bullet Time and Dissection, just know, the Prose, Pacing, and execution were lacking.
Bullet Time (Alpha): #
• Execution was a train wreck: I think this is because I came directly from BTWB to “The Library” so I can see a lot that could have been improved on. I also may have understood what White may have tried to do. I can’t say I know the author or anything, but just got the vibe that she wanted to make a sorta dark YA, a glorified cage as a library, and character drama that I wish was centered around Leon and Owl more. I would have liked epigraphs at the beginning of the chapters, just so we can see the depth of Alexandria and what the past Librarians went through. Some parts of the mystery that could have been branched on strayed away from the eyes of the reader, for instance, finding the tomes Alexandria gave to Owl. We didn’t get any textual info but a summary off screen what was in them.
I had to step back and wonder if I really wanted to know more or not, even though it might be rambling.
And after some thought, I did want to know more!
I wanted to see what these tomes were about and, maybe not get the answers explained fully, but just to see more depth to the world than what we got. Worldbuilding will expand further.
Dissection Time! =
True Tags (Beta):
GR tags this as: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, YA
The True Tags (if this was Ao3) are: Fantasy, Library, YA, Slow Burn, Vibe Check, LGBT elements (that may or may not be fruitful in the sequel), Getting Groomed to be a Librarian
Vibe:
The Vibe is a bit…weird. I say that however, this is not the author’s fault. I’m quite sure she wanted me to imagine endless rows of shelves in a gray mundane mist sort of way. But for some fucking reason, after a while, I came to see everything as blue. Don’t ask why. Owl’s mask was blue. The chairs were blue. Bookshelves were blue. Once Owl became an apprentice, everything was fucking blue and I don’t why my mind fixated on this, but it did.
Anyway, the vibe is a library, down to the smells, apparel, and tastes just scream, “I have no
friends. Books are my friends.” Which, bitch…..
Same.
Worldbuilding:
OK, here’s where we had to detract a half-star. The worldbuilding exists. That’s a start. The problem, as I mentioned earlier in Bullet, was that the execution was not that great. If you read my previous reviews, I went over various Worldbuilding methods and may have found a new pattern method.
Sprinkling Method: Adds worldbuilding in small bites. Never gets bigger than necessary and moves on almost immediately without thinking about it much in the next subsequent chapters. This info is not enough to build a separate document by itself like in Orderly.
Basically TLDR, it’s the equivalent of leaving breadcrumbs for a duck to follow every other foot. Not enough to make a full slice of bread, but just enough for a duck to eat (don’t feed bread to ducks).
I feel this is close to the Sporadic Method as there’s no rhyme or reason. Maybe the difference between the two is the amount of worldbuilding, (breadcrumb) being presented. Sporadic, as we know from Williams, could be anything from a single line of text to five fucking pages long of an epigraph. Jesus Christ, how horrifying.
Here with White, it’s at most a few pages long but not as an exposition dump but as a part of the plot, if that makes sense.
What we’re left with are hints from Alexandria revealing more of the library to Owl, discovering weird plot potential elements, and making friends that may or may not stab you. I kind of wish personally I got to dumpster dive into Alexandria more than we did. I’m happy we got something, but hey, maybe this is revolutionary for the fantasy library subgenre (which is increasingly becoming a thing and I’m here for it, bitch).
Another problem I wondered about with the worldbuilding…Why the hell is the Booklenders monopolizing a Shangri-la of knowledge when I feel like, every child should have access to this? Not fucking adults who will probably accelerate killing each other via magic in this world.
Plot:
I want to say, the plot tanked this down a bit more. I could see the last 5% of the book coming from a galaxy away. I think that’s because I’m an adult or I’m just a degenerate in the fantasy genre.
Hard to say.
Either way, the plot from 1-75% was fine. I had a problem when the latest group of Booklenders came into the library and it was so dumb what White was trying to do, that I wanted the book to be done with fast.
Yes, Barbara, I know this book is for YA. No, if I ever admit to being an “adult”, I probably lost the means to live.
The plot mostly is a sorta timeline of how Owl spends his days, months, years, even centuries trying to unravel Alexandria. It also goes into depth about who comes into Alexandria, but not so much…what their goals are. We don’t know much about the texts they desire, what their research delves into, or even so much as the title of a book.
Characters:
I would detract a star or two here but on second thought.
I can’t be mad.
It’s a YA book, not Tolkien levels here. White wasn’t trying to achieve that, even though her plot was that of a grand chess master attempt.
I appreciate Leon had a bit of depth to the guy. Yet sadly we don’t see as much as we should. There are sometimes characters that we get a nibble of, but not who they are per se. And once they’re there with their monotony, they overstay their welcome.
Take, Alex for example. I don’t mind that she was ever-present in the story. I mind that her character seems very one noted in interactions. We know her personality as vindictive, conniving, gentle, and caring. Her interactions with Owl are usually wind chime laughter and making things harder for Owl, while she gives the occasional help. I do wish there was more “on-screen” action of her other personality traits.
Out of the characters we have here, Owl is at least very human for a MC which is… surprising. He has no ruling personality trait, he can get frustrated a lot, isn’t an idiot, uses his brain more often than not, and in some depths, is a tsundere whether you like it or not.
Prose:
Cheese and crackers. OK.
1.5 star deduction was had here and why this was ultimately 3.5 stars. Sure, Plot and Worldbuilding had some flaws, and this was a solid 4/5 book…if the Prose wasn’t so bad.
Like with “Ninth Rain”, I’m opening a random number page number 88 and showing an example of some prose.
If you have anything to give him, now’s the time. I don’t know how much longer I can-
Can you guess this time what’s wrong with the prose and how it reflects on the rest of the book?
What we have is 7 words, a comma, 4 words, period. Next sentence. 8 words, a hyphen, and an abrupt end to the sentence.
It’s not a problem when this literary device is used. Usually, it’s used to expect something unexpected is going to happen in the next line. If it’s used in dialogue, it’s someone else cutting the OG speaker off or the OG speaker stops midsentence entirely to build tension.
Now, guess how this is a problem? You guessed it! It’s the same exact problem we had in “Ninth Rain”. White is sadly using the same literary device on nearly every page or every other page that it starts to get noticeable. It also appears in the dialogue. Plenty of times. To the point that the dialogue doesn’t even feel punchy or concise like she’s trying to make it sound.
Maybe as a writer, I notice literary devices easier, but you shouldn’t notice the same exact one repeatedly.
I took a look in the Afterword (something I should do more often, honestly) and it said to the effect that “The Library” was her first attempt at a novel.
OK, we can believe that.
What I can’t believe is that “The Library” was not her first published book according to GR. If she has been publishing for a while, I would think she would at least edit it more to the point that she has learned more from her work.
From my experience with authors, the graphs of how authors improve are ideally exponential as you know more about the ins and outs. I don’t know if White improved since this book, however. Regardless, every author can always improve their work, no matter how famous or how highly they are in the industry.
Barbara, even damn Hoover can improve. Don’t roll your eyes at me you uptight-
OK, if we’re playing that game…even…Morgan Stang. No baby, I love you, shhhh, I didn’t mean it…
Maybe if I was a teenager devouring every book regardless of quality I wouldn’t notice? I’m not sure I was this analytical of prose and writing in general when I was a kid so I think the younger audience probably wouldn’t have a problem with this still.
Pacing:
Imagine “The Library” as the 48-hour cookie, except instead of a nice, caffeinated cookie, what we’re left with is a side effect of Vitamin D deficiency.
It’s a slow burn. Not just in terms of romance, but for the pacing of the plot and book itself. White won’t rush you through the chapters, she’ll hold you by the hand while delving into Alexandria, all the while wondering if we’re ever going to find the text proving that Atlantis was real.
Fix It AU (Beta): $
If we can fix anything from “The Library”, I think it would be including epigraphs expanding the lore of the world, including more of the texts within Alexandria, drop plot points that expand Alexandria more than just why mages want her, and converging plot points together so it meshes together during the climax, so it doesn’t feel like it was a kitchen sink cookie.
And of course, vary literary devices.
Conclusion: ^
So, what was the reason for taking a new approach to my reviewing and adding Fix It AU?
I don’t know if White is one of those people to take literary criticisms with a grain or a bucket of salt. If she is one of those people to take it by the bucket or if some hapless aspiring writer happens upon my review work but also wants to be a writer. Then maybe these reviews can help future writers or even the authors themselves if they choose to take it.
At the end of the day, if no one cares, it’s more of a record and advice for myself before I publish my work and double-check everything I can touch up and fix. Cause, who wouldn’t want to improve their craft?
So, who should read this? Read if you’re a YA fed up with dumb romances in your books and need something else to spice it up. It’s on KU, so even if you don’t have much to spare, you can at least leech on your big brother’s Amazon Prime account and either get KU on his account or just discreetly get an Amazon gift card for yourself.
One reviewer says it’s similar to “The Library on Mount Char.” I can’t verify if that’s true, so take it as you will.
You also are the type that falls in love with an AI chatbot and needs something that is weirdly similar. Hey, at least Alexandria can make you chocolate milk. What can an AI do? Not brainwash you into being a librarian?
3.5/5
More readable on the blog: https://cannedbreadblog.wordpress.com...
Introduction: &
Bullet Time (Alpha): #
Dissection: =
Fix It AU (Beta): $
Conclusion: ^
Introduction: &
I’m reading “The Book That Wouldn’t Burn” by Mark Lawrence throughout July, and while I was chilling in the living room having my cup of coffee, a bookworm, literally, entered my brain.
And I wondered, “I could have sworn I read something similar to this book…What was it?”
1 hour later, an AI chatbot, a confused fiancé, and 2 coffees later, I had to manually search to find it on KU. The book?
“The Library” by Casey White.
Is it any good? It depends on whom you ask.
If you ask me? Eh. It's OK.
If you ask 13-year-old me? Probably, yes.
I wanted to like this book so badly, though the problem, like “Ninth Rain”, was the execution. Granted, White did miles better than Williams, but I’m not trying to pit a dragon against an owl.
I’ll explain more in Bullet Time and Dissection, just know, the Prose, Pacing, and execution were lacking.
Bullet Time (Alpha): #
• Execution was a train wreck: I think this is because I came directly from BTWB to “The Library” so I can see a lot that could have been improved on. I also may have understood what White may have tried to do. I can’t say I know the author or anything, but just got the vibe that she wanted to make a sorta dark YA, a glorified cage as a library, and character drama that I wish was centered around Leon and Owl more. I would have liked epigraphs at the beginning of the chapters, just so we can see the depth of Alexandria and what the past Librarians went through. Some parts of the mystery that could have been branched on strayed away from the eyes of the reader, for instance, finding the tomes Alexandria gave to Owl. We didn’t get any textual info but a summary off screen what was in them.
I had to step back and wonder if I really wanted to know more or not, even though it might be rambling.
And after some thought, I did want to know more!
I wanted to see what these tomes were about and, maybe not get the answers explained fully, but just to see more depth to the world than what we got. Worldbuilding will expand further.
Dissection Time! =
True Tags (Beta):
GR tags this as: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, YA
The True Tags (if this was Ao3) are: Fantasy, Library, YA, Slow Burn, Vibe Check, LGBT elements (that may or may not be fruitful in the sequel), Getting Groomed to be a Librarian
Vibe:
The Vibe is a bit…weird. I say that however, this is not the author’s fault. I’m quite sure she wanted me to imagine endless rows of shelves in a gray mundane mist sort of way. But for some fucking reason, after a while, I came to see everything as blue. Don’t ask why. Owl’s mask was blue. The chairs were blue. Bookshelves were blue. Once Owl became an apprentice, everything was fucking blue and I don’t why my mind fixated on this, but it did.
Anyway, the vibe is a library, down to the smells, apparel, and tastes just scream, “I have no
friends. Books are my friends.” Which, bitch…..
Same.
Worldbuilding:
OK, here’s where we had to detract a half-star. The worldbuilding exists. That’s a start. The problem, as I mentioned earlier in Bullet, was that the execution was not that great. If you read my previous reviews, I went over various Worldbuilding methods and may have found a new pattern method.
Sprinkling Method: Adds worldbuilding in small bites. Never gets bigger than necessary and moves on almost immediately without thinking about it much in the next subsequent chapters. This info is not enough to build a separate document by itself like in Orderly.
Basically TLDR, it’s the equivalent of leaving breadcrumbs for a duck to follow every other foot. Not enough to make a full slice of bread, but just enough for a duck to eat (don’t feed bread to ducks).
I feel this is close to the Sporadic Method as there’s no rhyme or reason. Maybe the difference between the two is the amount of worldbuilding, (breadcrumb) being presented. Sporadic, as we know from Williams, could be anything from a single line of text to five fucking pages long of an epigraph. Jesus Christ, how horrifying.
Here with White, it’s at most a few pages long but not as an exposition dump but as a part of the plot, if that makes sense.
What we’re left with are hints from Alexandria revealing more of the library to Owl, discovering weird plot potential elements, and making friends that may or may not stab you. I kind of wish personally I got to dumpster dive into Alexandria more than we did. I’m happy we got something, but hey, maybe this is revolutionary for the fantasy library subgenre (which is increasingly becoming a thing and I’m here for it, bitch).
Another problem I wondered about with the worldbuilding…Why the hell is the Booklenders monopolizing a Shangri-la of knowledge when I feel like, every child should have access to this? Not fucking adults who will probably accelerate killing each other via magic in this world.
Plot:
I want to say, the plot tanked this down a bit more. I could see the last 5% of the book coming from a galaxy away. I think that’s because I’m an adult or I’m just a degenerate in the fantasy genre.
Hard to say.
Either way, the plot from 1-75% was fine. I had a problem when the latest group of Booklenders came into the library and it was so dumb what White was trying to do, that I wanted the book to be done with fast.
Yes, Barbara, I know this book is for YA. No, if I ever admit to being an “adult”, I probably lost the means to live.
The plot mostly is a sorta timeline of how Owl spends his days, months, years, even centuries trying to unravel Alexandria. It also goes into depth about who comes into Alexandria, but not so much…what their goals are. We don’t know much about the texts they desire, what their research delves into, or even so much as the title of a book.
Characters:
I would detract a star or two here but on second thought.
I can’t be mad.
It’s a YA book, not Tolkien levels here. White wasn’t trying to achieve that, even though her plot was that of a grand chess master attempt.
I appreciate Leon had a bit of depth to the guy. Yet sadly we don’t see as much as we should. There are sometimes characters that we get a nibble of, but not who they are per se. And once they’re there with their monotony, they overstay their welcome.
Take, Alex for example. I don’t mind that she was ever-present in the story. I mind that her character seems very one noted in interactions. We know her personality as vindictive, conniving, gentle, and caring. Her interactions with Owl are usually wind chime laughter and making things harder for Owl, while she gives the occasional help. I do wish there was more “on-screen” action of her other personality traits.
Out of the characters we have here, Owl is at least very human for a MC which is… surprising. He has no ruling personality trait, he can get frustrated a lot, isn’t an idiot, uses his brain more often than not, and in some depths, is a tsundere whether you like it or not.
Prose:
Cheese and crackers. OK.
1.5 star deduction was had here and why this was ultimately 3.5 stars. Sure, Plot and Worldbuilding had some flaws, and this was a solid 4/5 book…if the Prose wasn’t so bad.
Like with “Ninth Rain”, I’m opening a random number page number 88 and showing an example of some prose.
If you have anything to give him, now’s the time. I don’t know how much longer I can-
Can you guess this time what’s wrong with the prose and how it reflects on the rest of the book?
What we have is 7 words, a comma, 4 words, period. Next sentence. 8 words, a hyphen, and an abrupt end to the sentence.
It’s not a problem when this literary device is used. Usually, it’s used to expect something unexpected is going to happen in the next line. If it’s used in dialogue, it’s someone else cutting the OG speaker off or the OG speaker stops midsentence entirely to build tension.
Now, guess how this is a problem? You guessed it! It’s the same exact problem we had in “Ninth Rain”. White is sadly using the same literary device on nearly every page or every other page that it starts to get noticeable. It also appears in the dialogue. Plenty of times. To the point that the dialogue doesn’t even feel punchy or concise like she’s trying to make it sound.
Maybe as a writer, I notice literary devices easier, but you shouldn’t notice the same exact one repeatedly.
I took a look in the Afterword (something I should do more often, honestly) and it said to the effect that “The Library” was her first attempt at a novel.
OK, we can believe that.
What I can’t believe is that “The Library” was not her first published book according to GR. If she has been publishing for a while, I would think she would at least edit it more to the point that she has learned more from her work.
From my experience with authors, the graphs of how authors improve are ideally exponential as you know more about the ins and outs. I don’t know if White improved since this book, however. Regardless, every author can always improve their work, no matter how famous or how highly they are in the industry.
Barbara, even damn Hoover can improve. Don’t roll your eyes at me you uptight-
OK, if we’re playing that game…even…Morgan Stang. No baby, I love you, shhhh, I didn’t mean it…
Maybe if I was a teenager devouring every book regardless of quality I wouldn’t notice? I’m not sure I was this analytical of prose and writing in general when I was a kid so I think the younger audience probably wouldn’t have a problem with this still.
Pacing:
Imagine “The Library” as the 48-hour cookie, except instead of a nice, caffeinated cookie, what we’re left with is a side effect of Vitamin D deficiency.
It’s a slow burn. Not just in terms of romance, but for the pacing of the plot and book itself. White won’t rush you through the chapters, she’ll hold you by the hand while delving into Alexandria, all the while wondering if we’re ever going to find the text proving that Atlantis was real.
Fix It AU (Beta): $
If we can fix anything from “The Library”, I think it would be including epigraphs expanding the lore of the world, including more of the texts within Alexandria, drop plot points that expand Alexandria more than just why mages want her, and converging plot points together so it meshes together during the climax, so it doesn’t feel like it was a kitchen sink cookie.
And of course, vary literary devices.
Conclusion: ^
So, what was the reason for taking a new approach to my reviewing and adding Fix It AU?
I don’t know if White is one of those people to take literary criticisms with a grain or a bucket of salt. If she is one of those people to take it by the bucket or if some hapless aspiring writer happens upon my review work but also wants to be a writer. Then maybe these reviews can help future writers or even the authors themselves if they choose to take it.
At the end of the day, if no one cares, it’s more of a record and advice for myself before I publish my work and double-check everything I can touch up and fix. Cause, who wouldn’t want to improve their craft?
So, who should read this? Read if you’re a YA fed up with dumb romances in your books and need something else to spice it up. It’s on KU, so even if you don’t have much to spare, you can at least leech on your big brother’s Amazon Prime account and either get KU on his account or just discreetly get an Amazon gift card for yourself.
One reviewer says it’s similar to “The Library on Mount Char.” I can’t verify if that’s true, so take it as you will.
You also are the type that falls in love with an AI chatbot and needs something that is weirdly similar. Hey, at least Alexandria can make you chocolate milk. What can an AI do? Not brainwash you into being a librarian?
3.5/5
More readable on the blog: https://cannedbreadblog.wordpress.com...
September 30, 2020
This... Was quite a ride. And that makes it extremely difficult to rate it. The word building, the general theme was so great that I want to give it five stars. The characters were so amazing and different that I want to give it five stars. It was so magical that I want to give it five stars. So why am I not doing so? Because it was a horrible drag in the middle and towards the end. It got so bad that I started skimming and then I had to go back and read it again because I had missed something essential - only to start skimming again after five pages. It still is an absolutely magical and unique reading experience and yes, I definitely recommend it. Just... Don't necessarily expect it to be a book you can just read without it having some major influence on you. It's a book that takes time to be truly understand and appreciated.
April 2, 2022
I'd long heard about this book, so I was excited to finally read it. Taking the concept of a magical Library of Alexandria, this book follows the perspective of its caretaker, and how the time and magic in the Library affects a person and their perceptions of things. I tend to like faster paced books, but this book absolutely savored in its slow pace and was better for it. I'm looking forward to reading the next installment!
January 12, 2023
As a whole, I found the book entertaining. The descriptions were well done, and I felt the worldbuilding was pretty good, though it felt a bit too close to Library at Mount Char for my tastes, though I'm glad narratively it went in a different direction (was very concerned in the first couple of chapters, but pressed on).
There are several things that keep me from rating this higher. There were some parts that dragged, and it felt like there were lots of threads that weren't really resolved by the end. And it felt like it ended rather abruptly, with the climax happening in the last 10% without much explanation as to the what or why of the cause.
I also feel like this book could use a fresh editing pass. There was a lot in it that seemed to take away from the experience. I only noticed a handful of typos, but there were a ton of random paragraph breaks, particularly noticeable in the middle of a single person's dialogue, which made it hard to follow in a lot of places. I also found the ellipses and dashes in conversation to be completely overused. It's fine in bits and pieces, but when every single character looks like they're tripping over their words in every single conversation, it definitely gets distracting.
There are several things that keep me from rating this higher. There were some parts that dragged, and it felt like there were lots of threads that weren't really resolved by the end. And it felt like it ended rather abruptly, with the climax happening in the last 10% without much explanation as to the what or why of the cause.
I also feel like this book could use a fresh editing pass. There was a lot in it that seemed to take away from the experience. I only noticed a handful of typos, but there were a ton of random paragraph breaks, particularly noticeable in the middle of a single person's dialogue, which made it hard to follow in a lot of places. I also found the ellipses and dashes in conversation to be completely overused. It's fine in bits and pieces, but when every single character looks like they're tripping over their words in every single conversation, it definitely gets distracting.
April 17, 2025
The Librarian of Alexandria introduces us to Owl, a boy swept into a dreamscape and reluctantly thrust into the role as the new caretaker for the Library of lost knowledge. The idea that time crawls to a standstill in the dreamscape, and that Owl can then step back into the "real" world was interesting, but I would have liked a little more in the way of fantasy and magic (despite mages not being allowed).
January 5, 2021
Thoroughly enjoyed it
Just the right mixture of magic, character depth, and plot. I'm hoping the second book follows suit and wraps up the story with a solution for both Owl and Alex.
Just the right mixture of magic, character depth, and plot. I'm hoping the second book follows suit and wraps up the story with a solution for both Owl and Alex.
June 16, 2024
What a wonderful innovative concept. Why didn’t I give it 4stars? I think it was the pacing. I was not as eager to pick this up over other books, me being used to suspense and high stakes fantasy. This is seriously worth a read. I would have rated 3.5 if I could figure out how on this app.
January 2, 2021
Loved this book!
Intriguing! Mystery! An interesting perspective. I can't wait for the next book to find out how this world evolves. Makes me wish I could visit the Library.
Intriguing! Mystery! An interesting perspective. I can't wait for the next book to find out how this world evolves. Makes me wish I could visit the Library.
April 12, 2021
Can't wait for more
Love this author
Can't wait to see what more stories are floating around in their head waiting to be put out for the rest of us to enjoy
Love this author
Can't wait to see what more stories are floating around in their head waiting to be put out for the rest of us to enjoy
July 8, 2023
4.75☆
A very slow-paced yet interesting read. It reminded me of the Starless sea with the whole mysterious library aspect.
A very slow-paced yet interesting read. It reminded me of the Starless sea with the whole mysterious library aspect.
January 20, 2025
Ugh. I feel like this was just going on forever. And going nowhere. DNF.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews