The Library at Mount Char
Note: I do my best to keep this book review as spoiler free as possible. Focusing on my reaction to it's story, rather then the story itself. But I only guarantee the "Summary" section to be 100% story safe.
Summary
The library at mount char is a hugely fun read, and I absolutely recommend it. The story is fast paced, and the author has a remarkable ability to get you immediately invested into characters as they appear. Creating a sense that your understanding of the protagonist is as much a part of the plot as the protagonists own growth within it.
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Review
This book took me on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Most of the characters are, to be blunt monstrous. I spent the first half of the book legitimately hoping the protagonist would fail.
Throughout the story all the characters do horrific things. It is almost overwhelming at the beginning. There really does not seem to be anybody to "root for", and the more you learn about each character the less you want any of them to succeed. But, as you learn more about the world in which they exist it starts to feel much less random. May not the individual actions of the characters. A lot of that does not start to make sense until the end. But the characters them selves make sense. Who they are, and why they are the way they are.
In my opinion this is ultimately a story of necessity. A sort of re-asking of "do the ends justify the means" under the most extreme of circumstances. I found it to be a hugely compelling read. If upsetting at times to work through. In the end I found the decisions to be …. understandable. Unpleasant, Disagreeable, and even Painful to consider. But also compelling. If you assume that the characters in the story are not missing obvious solutions that we as the reader see from the outside. It's hard to say that they are wrong.