I saw/heard only positive reviews on this book and I don't really get it. The real life mentions of actual famous people really took me out, and found the characterization of most characters quite shallow, and there was way too much exposition in the dialogue. I understand what's happening, you don't need to explain it again by the characters talking about it. There were some really dumb parts involving the unnamed

president of the united states

in an urban fantasy.. and the fantasy elements were interesting but never explained at all. Basically just don't worry about it.

There were also just some weird, gross moments in this book that felt really unnecessary.

I'll give it this, it was entertaining and was a fairly quick read, so if you just want to not think about the fantasy elements or characters too deeply, and want an entertaining time, you might like this book. I think it's competently written for the most part, for my personal taste I just wish I'd have skipped it.

 I read this as part of the 2024 r/fantasy Bingo – Prologues and Epilogues. 

The Library at Mount Char has been floating around my "to read list" for a while now and I'm glad I got the chance to go into completely unaware of what I was setting foot into. 

Mount Char is a dark and mysterious dive into a strange reality where the mundane world collides with the supernatural. The only book that I think I can compare it to is American Gods by Neil Gaiman. However Mount Char lacks the human belief element - the things in Mount Char don't care what you believe. The Librarians, of which the main character is, exist totally unaware of - and indifferent to the human beings around them. 

The best way I can describe it is a battle between otherworldly powers, trying to gain the ability to govern reality as they see it. 

On the experience of reading it, I have to say, this is a unique work and I found myself enjoying it. That being said, some things didn't work for me. I had trouble following the goals of the characters. It wasn't always clear why they were doing the things they did. A couple times they seemed so confused they were asking each other what was going on and someone would say, "forget it, you wouldn't understand." 

As a result, it was hard to get invested in their struggles because it wasn't always clear what was at stake. Also, by the same token, the lore and world building seemed really interesting but we never really got much understanding of it. It would have been great to know more about the catalogues and the other librarians - towards the end it only seemed like a few of them mattered to the story.

Things that I thought were quite evocative, like the horror elements, were really good. The brazen bull, the dogs, the healing and "magic". All really impressive.