the author really thought he was cooking with this!!!

early on there were signs i maybe shouldn’t have bothered but i was willing to overlook those for the promise of mystery and creativity. i shouldn’t have. the promise that it centres on librarians in charge of different catalogs is basically irrelevant. it glorifies weaponry and military tactics which it tries to hide beneath a thin veneer of dark academia tinged horror/fantasy. it was a constant barrage of weapon names and makes that completely took me out of the story. i think the author thinks it’s cool? or something? i do not agree.

i’m very willing to let things go largely unexplained in fantasy if the mechanics hold up under any amount of scrutiny. the justification for the mechanics in this basically amount to “physics or whatever” or “don’t worry about, i had to study for 60,000 years to understand” no!!! insufficient! lazy!!

then there’s the lazy, simplistic depiction of women AND rape!! re: the first s.a. scene, i quote:

!!!!! utterly callous and out of touch. 

i gave it 1.5 stars towards the attempt at originality, it was buck-wild and impossible to try and explain, but i don’t especially care to anyway.

What a difficult book to rate. Upon finishing, I had the desire to re-read it immediately--there were so many scenes I wanted to read again with the context of the ending. That said, I don't think I'll be re-reading this in the near future just because the violence and gore was a little much for me. I started and stopped it several times since I wasn't in the right headspace for it. On my third try, something clicked. It's delightfully strange. 

I had heard a lot about how good The Library at Mt. Char was, but I heard distinctly less about how totally, insanely weird it was. This is a book completely filled to the brim with ideas I have never heard before. Furthermore, I found it entirely impossible to predict because the author was unafraid to let literally anything at all happen. I think I really enjoyed this.

The Library at Mt. Char is about a “family” with a very specific job given to them by their father. Each of these siblings is a librarian responsible for knowing absolutely everything about their particular subject. David, for example, knows everything about weapons and warfare. Our main character Carolyn is the master of language. They grew up in a magical library, raised and abused by their enigmatic “Father,” but now their father has gone missing. The librarians gather to use their knowledge to find their Father, or at the very least get back inside the magic library.

This synopsis makes the book sound so much more straightforward than it truly is. Part of the confusion the reader is steeped in is centered around the fact the Carolyn is our point of view character, but she also knows so much more about what’s happening than what she tells the reader. She plans and executes plans off screen, and that definitely adds to the chaos, but I also really enjoyed that a character we thought we knew was able to surprise and intrigue me so much. Carolyn is not the ONLY POV character, though, and I do think this really helps the momentum and mystery of the story stay moving.

Our other points of view are Steve, an ex-con who gets dragged into this crazy plot by Carolyn, and Erwin, an ex-military man investigating a bank robbery by a strange couple of women. It’s nice to have a couple of straight-men around when a herd of vicious dogs start attacking or a psychopath in a tutu murders and entire police station. It’s an important grounding point for the reader, and I think it was a good idea for the author to include these characters. I liked Steve quite a lot, though I was a little baffled by his eventual backstory reveal. Actually, everything to do with the origins of the librarians was weird. It involved a nuclear weapons strike at a family barbecue and time almost freezing. 

I liked that the readers got to witness the past at the library because the lore surrounding it and the way the librarians were raised is fascinating. This is a horror story, and it really doesn’t let you forget it, especially in some of those flashbacks. David is a complete monster, but he was also made into a monster by their Father. The Brazen Bull truly was a horrific part of the story, but it was so memorable. I almost wish we got to learn a little bit more about the library and the siblings. I believe there are twelve librarians, but really only six matter. We don’t even learn what every sibling actually studies. I think one or two don’t even get names. 

I just don’t know how to explain to you how bonkers this book actually is. I mean, I can tell you that I think Steve has his full bare ass hanging out for the entire climax of the book? He kidnap a vet to take care of a lion? The sun gets killed and replaced by a different sun? David is constantly covered in a helmet of dried blood, but he’s also wearing a TUTU the entire time he’s killing people? Seriously, I don’t think anything conventional happens in this story. Whatever happened to the heart that was in Carolyn’s fridge??? 

The Library at Mount Char is seriously weird, but the entire time I was reading I was enjoying myself. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. The book is seriously gory and definitely horrific. It’s got basically the whole list of trigger warnings, so seriously beware and know your own horror tolerance. The writing was really excellent, vivid and creative and so fresh! I will say that there was a bit of a climax, and then the falling action was long and a bit less exciting than what proceeded it. Other than that, I loved it.

Culty 'family' where violence is normalized. Felt the action/plot ended early and the last few chapters were clean-up

Oh my gosh, where to even start? I think I loved this book. 

To begin, we follow Carolyn and a few others, as they learn under "Father". He is teaching them each one of his 12 "catalogs" (war, animals, languages, etc.), and they may not study anything outside of their own. 

For lack of better words, Father is their god. Now then, would would happen if god disappeared?

This story kind of has the vibe of an adult version of the scenes in Stranger Things, with Eleven and the other kids, and Papa.

This book is incredibly written. It's horrifying, darkly funny, and absolutely heartbreaking. 

I think this story is about how no matter how much time you take to heal, trauma changes you, in ways that cannot be undone. 

"She knew every word that had ever been spoken, but she could think of nothing to say that might ease his grief."

"Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it."

There's no light or redemption in this book.

I feel like this had the potential to be incredible, but some of the descriptions of violence/gore/assault are just so much that it takes away from the actual plot.