For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of rare and dangerous books. Books that let a person walk through walls, or borrow someone else’s face; books of magic.
Now, Joanna Kalotay lives alone in the woods of Vermont, their library’s sole protector, while her estranged older half-sister, Esther moves between countries and jobs, constantly changing, never staying anywhere for longer than a year, desperate to avoid the dangerous magic that killed her own mother. She is currently working as an electrician on a research base in Antarctica where she has found love. Maybe, finally, she feels free.
But when someone on-base begins using magic, Esther realises that she can’t outrun her family’s legacy. The long-separated sisters must work together to unravel the secrets their parents kept hidden, secrets that span centuries and continents, and even other libraries…
CW: Death, blood, kidnapping, injuries,
Rating
Review
I didn’t like this book as much as I would have liked; it took me so much more time and was near DNF.
First, this book is divided into completely unequal parts, as the biggest one is where you have all the explanations about the world. This part is quite tiresome from time to time, not when it talks about the magic books but when it comes to all the presentation of the main characters, which you discover you have three viewpoints and not only two, the settings, too many lengthy descriptions, and their backgrounds. I know we need all those elements to understand the story but it was lengthy and very told and not shown which makes things a little info-dumpy from time to time. The last two parts represent less than half of the book, and it’s where everything unravels. Sadly, it’s fast-paced without being fast-paced, and this part was a tale told by someone without being entertaining.
Second, the characters were distinguishable as their tones were different. However, I didn’t like two povs out of three, which isn’t a lot. The best character was Nicholas; he felt like the more well-constructed one with a believable personality. He also gives the most information about the magic book, and I craved his chapters. Concerning the other two POVs, Esther and Johanna, they feel like the stereotypical girls from an early YA fantasy book. All the characters’ roles in the story were a little too predictable. Right from the beginning, you know who will be the villain, who will change sides, who will betray, and who will have a big revelation. And like in every YA fantasy book, you have a romance and let me tell you, this one comes from nowhere; you don’t have at least a little chemistry between the two characters. Even if this is not a YA book, it feels like one due to that.
As it’s a debut and the premise was good, I wasn’t too harsh and just DNFed this book as I still wanted to give this book that is well-loved by others a chance.
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