Book Review #6: The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library, #1) by Genevieve Cogman

Rowan Day
Mar 8, 2020
2 min read

Updated: May 7, 2020

Hello! Long time no talk.

I have a paperback of The Invisible Library, a delightful little book published by Tor Books UK, that sits at around 329 pages. This has been sitting on my shelf for some time, I think because I confused it with one of the other library with a capital L books (The Library at Mount Char among others) but while trying to find Stranger of Tempest by Tom Lloyd which has seemingly disappeared from my house, I happened upon this book and thought I’d give it a whirl. Now, I was simultaneously reading the Silmarillion, which is a bit of a dense read, so The Invisible Library served for a nice read alongside that.

Synopsis

The Invisible Library centers on a young woman named Irene, who is under the employ of the Invisible Library. This library exists between worlds, and the librarians travel between these worlds and universes seeking unique and rare books to add to the library’s collection. Irene, a younger librarian, searches for books her senior librarian requests. She gets paired with a new librarian, Kai, and is sent to a version of London to find a book. When Kay and Irene in a chaos-ridden London, they soon realize the task wasn’t as easy as they initially thought, and that an old nemesis of the library might be looking for the same book.

Review sans spoilers

I really enjoyed this book. Genevieve has a witty, light writing style, that gives the book an easy-reading feel, while still having a deep, complex plot and serious elements. This book is almost entirely different from the other library books I’ve read, which is always a plus, and had some good concepts that I’m looking forward to seeing more of in the next book (as soon as I get around to buying it). There’s also some solid slow-burn romance -- I think? -- that is always appreciated. The villain is sneaky and impossible to kill, and there’s a wide variety of magical people and elements. Overall, an extremely enjoyable read.

I’m giving this book a solid 8 out of 10.

Review with spoilers

Things I liked - The concept of the dragon as a person. Qai almost has two warring personalities, and I find this very interesting. I like the idea that the type of magic in each world either lends to increasingly cool technology or a kind of messed up world with fae and vampiric and all kinds of physical manifestations of chaos. I like Irene especially.

Things I didn’t like as much - My only criticism is that I want this concept in a high fantasy version. But this is basically how I feel about any book that’s good, but not high fantasy. So. Also, I wanted Qai and Irene to make out. But, it’s fine.

Conclusion

I recommend! Please read! Also give me similar recommendations - or better yet, books with similar types of stories, but that are big tomes of complexity. Pls.