Kate Quinn - The Astral Library

Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives...inside their favorite books.
The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy—Alix, the Librarian, or the Library itself?

Comment: I've picked this book because it is one of the choices my buddy friend and I had for this month. I was quite excited to read it but it turned out to be a disappointment.

In this story we meet Alix, a very down on her luck woman who is having a lot of trouble making ends' meet and when things really reach rock bottom, she decides to go to the public library, which is a place where she finds a lot of comfort but this time something weird happens. She stumbles through a door and that is how she finds herself at a strange room, being welcomed by a librarian she had never met before. This librarian explains to her she is now at the astral library and she can choose to visit any fictional work she wants, as long as it is part of the public domain, and she can stay for a year, renewing it if she desires. Alix is amazed and she feels this is the opportunity for the adventure her struggling life through the foster system never provided. The problem is that someone is eager to change the rules about how the astral library works...

I was very excited to read this book, whose premise sounded very promising since it's about books, the existence of a magical library and the possible adventures the heroine would face throughout the plot. I also kind of liked the idea that she didn't have an easy life and wanted her to be able to enjoy a fun adventure.

The first chapters, where we get to see how difficult the heroine's life is, were interesting and while depressing, were very realistic. I assumed we were being told this so that it would feel even more obvious how the change would impact the heroine's life once she started her adventure. When she discovers the astral library, the possibilities were great: all readers probably already dreamed of being part of the world in their favorite books and if added to it, the idea that one might jump into worlds or to spend time there, even if not as the protagonist, it all seemed a great utopia. 

I should say that this is the first book I try by the author and I knew it isn't her usual style/genre. I know she has published historical fiction (another of her books has also been in my TBR pile for long) and I already expected that this one would not be what gave her recognition. Still, I feel very disappointed because as soon as Alix starts interacting with the astral library's librarian and starts off the quest to help save it from someone who intends to cause problems, all went south for me.

Alix started to sound more and more annoying, even if she had the right ideas and the heart for the task. The magic of the library allowed people to travel into fictional worlds, to live there if they wished and to renew that yearly. Great ideas, but then the characters kept jumping between "worlds" and it started to seem as if their importance was only in regards to how it helped the main characters do accomplish what they wanted. I'm specifically thinking about the fact the characters who chose to live in fiction were all people who suffered/were hurt/were chased, etc, and they were, let's use the word, worthy, of this adventure. This is a good tactic but we don't spend enough time in each world for it to seem that it mattered which one.

Thus, it felt that the point was more to name worlds, to use titles and author and not as much if it would matter for Alix and the others. Clearly, this happens because the Kate Quinn had a plan, which it was to use this book a way to highlight how much libraries are necessary, how much our current way of living isn't interested in places which don't originate profit. I don't mind the fact the author had and agenda with this book - many readers in several platforms mostly disliked this as the reason for negative reviews - but it does bother me that including these things took over the plot or the proper execution of it.

The more I read, the more annoying the story became and I was actually bored and considering not finishing. I've kept going the book isn't big, honestly. 

There is also a very slight romantic element with a friend of Alix, but this felt avoidable and I think the author only used this element because the guy, Beau, liked fashion and was a convenient way for Alix to have special outfits for two of her "travels".

The end was practically a declaration of war on current practices which make more and more demands for places like libraries to be financed in such ways that they origin some kind of profit. This would, obviously, mean the end of free access to all, independently of their financial situation. The debate will remain and I do applaud the author for her views and message, but... the wonderful premise of this book and the reason why many likely wanted to read it....lost.... at least in my opinion. I wanted more fictional story and less amount of things that ended up not mattering.

Grade: 4/10