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Ink and Bone (The Great Library, #1)

Rachel Caine

Start date: March 12, 2016

Finish date: March 31, 2016

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What Members Thought

Sep 22, 2019 Midu Hadi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: missing-shelf, series-completed, first-in-the-series, read-in-september, reviewed, us-author, series, physical-copies, 300-400-pages, dystopian

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Ms. Caine's writing sucks me in without fail. Whether she is writing about weather-controlling women with a lousy fashion sense or djinn-turned mortal women with ice blond hair, I am willing to listen. This one was no different, even if the premise is nothing like it had been for those other books.

Libraries, for us readers, are bastions of knowledge. Even after those who wrote their phenomenal texts or others acting as scribes preserved someone's memorable words are dead and buried, the librarie
Ms. Caine's writing sucks me in without fail. Whether she is writing about weather-controlling women with a lousy fashion sense or djinn-turned mortal women with ice blond hair, I am willing to listen. This one was no different, even if the premise is nothing like it had been for those other books.

Libraries, for us readers, are bastions of knowledge. Even after those who wrote their phenomenal texts or others acting as scribes preserved someone's memorable words are dead and buried, the libraries guard the work they left behind. Libraries also make it available to the future generations -- both the good and the bad.

Imagine, if all such houses of knowledge united under a central authority and started controlling what they treasure now. We'd have to say goodbye to new inventions because they may threaten the library's station, including mass production of books and multiple copies of the same book. The pleasure of holding a book in your hands or owning it would become a crime. That's the world this book is set in.

This Library did so much more, though. It kidnapped people with rare, special abilities and forcibly bred them. It had an army at its command. It razed countries that dared to question its authority. It punished those who ran rings that smuggled books to collectors, readers, and ink-eaters -- yeah, it is a whole other gross thing. Oh, and as the final nail to a reader's sensibilities, the author set the Library of Alexandria in the villain's role. I lapped it all up greedily.

So far, everything was great. There was even a use of the fact that many human minds come up with similar ideas without having met the other thinkers. Factual case in point, Mendel and that other guy. Fictional case in point, Gutenberg's Press and other characters from this book.

Now, if only I could connect with the protagonists. But I didn't care about which of them died or who survived. To my Potter-riddled eyes, a black-robed professor sounded like Snape Lite. In my defense, that's how he was introduced minus the Rickmanian hair flip. Later, he evolves into someone who gives a damn -- see, very un-Snape-ish behavior! Even then, I found lukewarm concern for him when they arrested him.

To conclude, if you like a good story and think, to hell with the characters, then this book is for you! ...more

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