Thursday 4 March 2021

Genevieve Cogman - The Invisible Library

 
Rating: 1/5
 
Review:
Not for me

I’m afraid this really wasn’t for me. I tried it because of a recommendation from a friend whose judgement I trust, but this time we simply disagree.

The set-up is well explained in the publisher’s blurb. “Librarians” in the eponymous library, which exists out of time, travel to different parallel worlds to collect books. This is hazardous and involves confrontations with every imaginable mythical creature: dragons, vampires, necromancers and other magicians of all kinds...you name it. Despite the bibliographical context, which should have been a big plus for me, I found it messy, full of cliché and, I’m sorry to say, rather clunkily written. There seemed to be little coherent structure to Cogman’s world(s) and the convenient Language to solve every peril was...well, too convenient to be interesting or exciting.

Frankly, this struck me more like a video game with a rather random sequence of scenes of peril than a well structured and well written novel. I read as much as I could stomach and gave up. I’m sorry to be so critical, but I really didn’t like it.

No comments:

Post a Comment