Pan Books The Invisible Library

I think this is one of those frustrating books that has a great idea behind it but the writing just can’t do it justice. I like the idea of the Library and the potentially dodgy senior Librarians, and using alternate worlds gives a lot of scope for Irene and Kai to go off adventuring in them. The problem is that the worlds have to be explained, the Library has to be explained, worlds we aren’t even going to have to be explained in order to explain the world we ARE in, or else are explained just for larks. Characters’ feelings are explained. Their thoughts are explained. There’s a lot of explanation in this book.I don’t think the reader is being deemed too thick to understand it - I think there’s just a bit too much going on to avoid dropping in great chunks of information. Could some of the explanations not have been more delicately peppered in? Or could things actually have been shown, rather than spoon-fed, to the reader? There were often chunks of explanation or great swathes of character’s thoughts in the middle of their speech, but by the time I’d read all that gubbins I’d usually forgotten what the character was saying in the first place. Sometimes it read like they’d forgotten, too. I'm not surprised, if they had to think through all that before carrying on the conversation.There’s some humour in it that didn’t often hit the mark for me - this, and the sudden bloody violence, didn’t seem to quite match the tone of the book. Having said that, there were a few places where I did snort out a bit of a chuckle, and the odd place where I thought the plot or characters were going somewhere particularly interesting.Weirdly, for a book involving books, and characters for whom grammar is extremely important, the editing in this seems a bit peculiar. Quite a few times the flow is jarred by a sentence which isn’t, grammatically, a sentence. I would have thought an editor would have sorted that out, unless the editor put it in.I’m afraid I did complain a lot while I was reading this book (loudly, to anyone who was in earshot) and it became more of a chore than an enjoyable experience. It would irritate me, then redeem itself enough to keep reading, then irritate me all over again. Annoyingly, I did finish the book mildly curious as to what might happen next - perhaps if Irene et al are tied to the one alternate world, there might be less explanation going on, if nothing else - but I won’t be rushing to read the next one.

It's like there's two people writing this book.The first is a world builder, who is trying to cram as much as possible into the book by way of information so that the reader doesn't get bored. Whose mastery of characterisation is clunky: the characters are just there to advance the plot; they do not advance the plot themselves. An author who tries to gallop the reader through plot twists and action sequences as a way of disguising any loopholes or lack of characterisation.The other writer is the one who comes up elegant turns of phrases and beautiful description (such as the description of the River Serpent) which take my breath away and make me want to read the sequel in the hope of encountering more of this second writer.Shades of Jasper Forde without the clarity or the elegance or the brilliant twists. Great beginning and premise, a kind of James Bond for Librarians, and it's always nice to have a strong female character as the protagonist, but I could not feel any empathy for her, the plot doesn't always make sense, and the author has to intervene with justifications and convoluted explanations, which left me still puzzled (e.g. why is the Grimm book so important). And indeed, why should a Collective Library be so important in the great scheme of things? I feel as though this book is merely a device to set up a world for the sequels.Read Jasper Forde to see how literary surrealism should be done.

A blurb on Good Reads says this is like Doctor Who and I'm inclined to agree, the Doctor does run about manically pulling answers out of his arse as if making them up on the spot, doesn't he? The Doctor is a childish programme, isn't it? Whilst I enjoyed this book, it does seem like a children's story with Basil Exposition in the form of a student and a detective to help the story along, explaining the concept of The Library and it's rules. The world creation was interesting but it was all a bit flimsy and the introduction of moments of possible romance was cringe worthy. I might read the next in the series but I've got plenty on my to read list so I might not.

I enjoy alternative reimaginings of our world and its history, and I remain besotted with books: so the idea behind the book immediately appealed. I'd certainly leap at the chance to visit parallel universes in search of variant texts, though alas the chances of this happening seem to lessen by the day. There were some irritations with the heroine, but overall I enjoyed the pacing of the story and was amused by the underlying conception. I'm looking forward to the arrival of vol. 2, already pre-ordered. I hope the author can maintain the pace and take the story in further unexpected directions.

When I first got this book after reading the reviews I was quite excited to be honest. The reviews found the book to be a refreshing take on the fantasy story with a quite original plot. Having started reading the book I nearly stopped after about 50 odd pages as I didn't really like the writing style. Lots of dialogue etc and not a lot of action. I'm glad I stuck with it though because by the end I had got into it and found it quite enjoyable and the ending obviously sets up book 2 which I have already bought. Like I say some will probably find it a bit boring with its rambling style of writing, but stick with it to the end, it's worth it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️