As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own. Funny, horrifying and original…the kind of story that keeps yanking you off in ridiculous new directions every time you think you know what’s coming next.” —David Wong, New York Times bestselling author of John Dies at the End OMG! This uniquely creative story is pushing me to be a fan of this genre! When a fantastical cult of badass "librarians" is making trouble within the real world, you can bet that a whole lot of shaking is going on! With such an original plot line, I could not predict the ending (even though I tried!);

She wasn't clear on what "club sody" was, but she could tell from his tone that this was a joke. Not the laugh-out-loud sort, the commiserating sort. She snorted. "I'll do that." Of course, this isn’t actually a mystery book, either. The book is classified under “contemporary fantasy”, and I guess that will have to do. I don’t want to go into the plot too much because half the fun of this book is the slow, steady reveal of how weird and crazy things are. Suffice to say, I have not read anything like it before, and just when I thought I figured out what’s going on, I was sooner proven wrong. You start the story in total confusion and stay that way for most of the book. Information is released in tiny increments. Bizarre characters enter and fantastic events unfold; you scratch your head and keep reading. It does become clear, from the beginning, that there are realms of reality co-existing in this book. One is our normal one, going about its day-to-day business. That average world, with which we are so familiar, is completely oblivious of that second plane of existence, which is operating busily right under its radar. The inhabitants and events in this secret universe are largely unseen, and when they do collide with humanity, humanity suffers the worse of the encounter. The old man's eyes went distant for a moment, trying to remember how he knew that name. He thought about it for a while, then gave up. Carolyn might have told him that he could drive by Garrison Oaks four times a day every day for a thousand years and still not remember it, but she didn't. Bonkers. Certifiably bonkers. (If anyone read that in Jason Mantzoukas’s voice, I’m in love with you.)

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at the start of the book, father has gone missing, and without him in place the world, including our world, is in danger of his equally-powerful enemies making a power play. which would be very very bad.

Bottom line: if you have a lot of energy, a not-too-busy week, and confidence in your own intelligence that can withstand this, get your hands on a copy!! Wow. Seriously, people are not exaggerating when they say this story is dark. It includes some of the ugliest ways I've ever heard of people being tortured or murdered. And for most of the story, the main character is hard to sympathize with, despite knowing what she went through. She blatantly manipulates and hurts everyone around her, and causes the deaths of dozens of people, and even more animals, all without a hint of regret. I can understand why this story isn't for a lot of people, and I'm really not sure who I would recommend it to, for fear that they would then hate me. A pyrotechnic debut…The most terrifyingly psychopathic depiction of a family of gods and their abusive fathersince Genesis.” —Charles Stross, Hugo and Locus Award-winning author of Accelerando and The Apocalypse CodexSecondly, was execution. The first third was great - the concept of fathers children specialising in various folios, their upbringing, the burglary, etc was really well done and a fantastic setup. I got real "American Gods" vibes but in a better way - better characters, better pacing. It has everything I could ever want. A mastermind plan or three. Godlike powers. A mystery, a revenge story, a freaking humorous and heartbreaking debacle including lions, dogs, and a very special man in a tu-tu, and a library that is so much more than a library. in fact, i already want to read it again to see how those earlier scenes read now that i know all that i know.

And even though the deaths, more deaths, and even more deaths, of world-eating plagues and starvation, of the snuffing out of the sun and the raising of a new one, it's kinda odd... that this is strangely one of the most up-beat and hopeful of Fantasies or Science Fiction or Horror that I've ever read. :) I finally got around to reading The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins, which had been on my TBR list ever since it released in June 2015. Thank goodness books are not buses – if you’re late, you can still catch it – because I loved this ride. Any complaints I might have about this book were minor. There are some long talking scenes that repeat information to characters that I, as a reader, already knew. That was fine, it happens to the best of us. The pacing of the last act runs a little long, but again, by that point I didn’t care because the book was just laying down the payoff of the mysteries it promised to solve at the beginning, and I was fine with that. There are horrible things done to people. Horrible things! But it’s not voyeuristic and purposeless. There is a method to the horror and madness, and it’s treated fairly. initially it is unclear when this takes place, if this is our world or just a version of our world, if there has been some sort of global event that forced people to live …differently and have different associations and only vague memories of something called Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Similarly, several times excessive force is used rather arbitrarily. This is understandable for Father and the Pelapi who obviously work on a slightly different scale, however even normal characters seemed to regard violence or threats as a first resort, something which again made neither Steve nor Erwin, our supposed perspective characters particularly easy to sympathise with.

So, if you like strange characters with a God-complex and you enjoy reading something that is truly nothing like you’ve ever read before, this is probably a good option for you. I very much enjoyed it. I would. In fact, I've listened to it twice already. I found the story to be gripping and fresh. Listening to it the second time made me appreciate all the subtle clues that the author has left for us to discover, and gave my second listen a different feel than the first one. I also found the narrator to be suitable in her portrayal of the various characters, though I must say that she makes extensive use of vocal fry (think bedroom voice) and that might annoy some people. I was ok with it though, I found it to be charming.

Jesus," he said. "Was there an accident?" His voice was warm with concern—the real kind, not the predator's fake that the last man had tried. She heard this and knew the old man was seeing her as a father might see his daughter. She relaxed a little. P.S. Много е готино да имаш лъвица за другар в бедите и да можете да си говорите, но на собствения ѝ език. Завидях на Стийв! A first-rate novel… a sprawling, epic contemporary fantasy about cruelty and the end of the world, compulsively readable, with the deep, resonant magic of a world where reality is up for grabs. Unputdownable.”— Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling author of Little Brother and Makers The distinctive mix of godlike powers and very human, emotional, knee jerk reactions contained in this story reminded me of some of the darker Greek and Roman mythological story elements like: the serial rapists (Zeus and about every other major god figure) and the unjust punishments of the innocents (Medusa, Actaeon, Laocoon, etc).

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The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins really scratched that itch for me. The plot and character arcs are completely unpredictable. From the get-go, you're just really intrigued with what on earth these characters are up to, and what their plans are. The events that occur are really, really wild. The book hits this coveted sweetspot between visceral horror and laugh-out-loud humor. I'm not exactly a prose guy (I like Sanderson, a lot) but I'm pretty sure this book read really well. Carolyn can barely remember being American. When she was eight, on the day her parents died, the nearly omnipotent being she calls Father took her and eleven other children to become Pelapi; that is librarians, to guard The Library which exists outside normal time and space and each master one of the twelve catalogues which contain Father’s vast knowledge. Under Father’s brutal instruction, Carolyn and the other Pelapi have gained fantastic powers, though at costs they cannot fully comprehend. When Father goes missing however, reality hangs in the balance, since cruel though Father could be, there are worse things even than him, dark and hungry beings which have been waiting. Not the least of these are the Pelapi themselves, such is Carolyn’s psychotic brother David, adept in the arts of war and murder, or Margarette who walks the land of the dead.