Hi Everyone,

Happy Tuesday. usually Tuesday’s are a bit of a meh day for me, however today is a good day. Firstly, it’s my best friend’s birthday so that’s amazing (Happy Birthday Bestest!). Secondly, I started knitting last night so I’m excited to continue with that today. It’s something I did lots of as a kid and then lost in my adulthood. Now I’m an old lady, I thought it was only right that I pick the hobby back up.

Book 📖

Thank you to @hodderbooks for this advanced copy of The Library Suicides by @fflur_dafydd_awdur_writer in return for an honest review. The Library Suicides was published on 19th January 2023 and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

Twins Ana and Nan are lost after the death of their mother. Everyone knows who drove Elena, the renowned novelist, to suicide – her long-term literary critic, Eben. But the twins need proof if they’re going to get revenge.

Desperate to clear his name, Eben requests access to Elena’s diaries at the National Library where the twins work, and they see an opportunity. With careful planning, the twins lock down the labyrinthine building, trapping their colleagues, the public and most importantly Eben inside. But as a rogue security guard starts freeing hostages, the plan unravels. And what began as a single-minded act of revenge blooms into a complex unravelling of loyalties, motives and what it is that makes us who we are.

General Thoughts 🤔

This book ended up being something quite different to what I had thought I was getting into. What the blurb didn’t mention is that there was a dystopian angle to the story. I don’t think that I was mad at it and the concept was really interesting. However I’m not convinced that the concept was followed through as well as it could have been.

I had such mixed feelings about this story. I went through chapters really engrossed and other chapters felt like they lasted 100 years. I don’t know if it was my mood or whether the story was so up and down. Some sections of the book could have been wrapped up a lot quicker and maybe more focus put on deeper character development.

Characters 👫👭👬

The story revolves around a handful of main characters; twins, Ana and Nan, Dan the security guy and Eben the critic. I didn’t particularly like any of these characters; which is fine. I’m always happy to dislike characters. However I need to care about their story in order to stay engaged with them and unfortunately, I didn’t care enough to become invested in any of them.

The twins had a weird, co-dependent relationship that I couldn’t quite get my head around. Dan was a weak man in my opinion. If he hadn’t had been sucked in and duped by the twins, so much could have been avoided. Finally, I couldn’t work out if Eben was/wasn’t a bad person.

Writing Style ✍️

This review so far reads like I didn’t enjoy this book at all, but I didn’t hate it. The author had obviously done enough to make me keep picking the book back up and find out what was going to happen. The characters were cleverly woven into each others lives and I enjoyed reading all of that unravel.

I also liked the concept of the book, being locked inside the library was an interesting slant. The only downside was, I would have liked a bit more description of the library itself as I couldn”t quite picture it to the level of detail I wanted to in my head.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I think that this book had a lot of potential to be something gripping and certainly different to other thrillers, however it fell just a touch short of being amazing for me. The dystopian plot line was a surprise, but probably one of my favourite things about the book and I would have liked to have read more about it. Unfortunately, the characters are what let this book down in my opinion, as I didn’t manage to become invested in their individual stories. However, this was an enjoyable read with an interesting plot so I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t love it either.

😍😍😍😐😐