5. The Great Library

One of the book series that I’ve read, I’ve talked about this one before. This is a very solid young adult series. I still need to finish up the last book, but the series as a whole works. The basic concept is cool, when the library of Alexandria was burned, it was rebuilt and became the haven for all books. But it was taken to a logical end of protecting books so much that it started to seek to control knowledge.

It is also a nice book that has a diverse cast of characters where you don’t notice it so much. That sounds odd to say, but fairly often in stories authors will like to call out what they are doing. This is integrated into the story in a way that it all makes sense and it flows together with the narrative. And that adds a depth and richness to the story that you don’t get if the author is pointing it out or if the diverseness of the cast of characters isn’t there.

4. Strange Academy

The first of the Marvel series, and this one is an ongoing series. And I somewhat have a soft spot for it because it’s a magical school. There’s one in The Great Library series, and there’s one in the next item on my list. The idea of kids learning that they have magical abilities or how to use them just works.

And here you have a unique cast of characters from Dormammu’s son to some Asgardians and a Frost Giant, and then just normal people. Plus teachers being Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Baron Voodoo and more, it is goofier than some comics, but works for me. And while it’s been more short little stories, I’ve enjoyed that I don’t need to wait as long to find out what is happening.

3. Keeper of the Lost Cities

Another set in a school, and another person who didn’t know they were magical getting sent to a school. Now, they knew they weren’t normal because they were telepathic, but they didn’t know what that meant. And it’s fun because it means that there is a whole other world around/intertwined with ours where magical creatures, elves, gnomes, and more exist.

This reminds me over Harry Potter, though, I think the early book writing is better done. And I think the series, thus far, hasn’t tried to do too much. The scope feels focused and while the world is big, there are a lot of interesting storylines. It isn’t limiting itself to just one story, but a lot of them that I’m sure will eventually come together. And the characters are fun to be around.

2. House of X/Power of X

This might be the top comic for a lot of people in 2020, when it came out. I didn’t get it on Marvel Unlimited until this year, and it’s really good. This is an X-Men or X reboot. It’s now, I believe, just called X. And it’s about Charles Xavier trying to create a utopia where mutants can live and exist outside of the struggles of the world and what it has provided for them.

But of course things don’t work like he expects and there is trial and error. But it’s less of an issue between mutants, he brings all the major players in, but with people as well, with nations. It feels like a side of Xavier that we don’t really see all that often. Him throwing his weight around as a personality and as well as his powers.

1. Secret Invasion

Finally, I read through all of Secret Invasion. I’ve read through the main storyline before, but when you get into the depths of Secret Invasion, there are so many comics. Are they required reading, not really, but it fleshes out the story and world that is being created.

Secret Invasion is one of my favorite storylines with the Skrull infiltrating every part of society, and especially super heroes. And it is fascinating because you are wondering, how is a Skrull. We’re starting to see that get set-up in the MCU and possibly coming up in 2022, late 2022 is my guess, we’ll get a Secret Invasion show. Now not all Skrull are evil, and in the MCU they definitely aren’t, but the question of who is a Skrull is a great on.

So that’s what I’ve read this year. I read some Dr Strange, Fantastic Four, and other comics as well this year. I’ve started on Secret Wars, and I think it was all in 2020, but maybe early 2021 where I read the Age of Apocalypse massive X-Men storyline. And I’m going through Wheel of Time on audiobook, but I’ve done that before.

What is your favorite thing you’ve read this year?

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The Great Library Premise

Jess is a book smuggler, his family as a whole are book smugglers, but that’s not what he loves. He loves to read books and learn. But due to the Library at Alexandria controlling all of the books, he doesn’t get read everything he wants and all knowledge is tightly controlled by the library. He ventures to the library to become a scholar so that he can help the family business. There he meets and interesting cast of characters as he studies and finds out that the library is not that good an organization. How can he and his fellow classmates and library counterparts work to take down this institution?

Initial Thoughts

The premise is not that unique, but it is unique at the same time. The idea that one area controls all knowledge is how some parts of the actual world work. But this takes it even further. It’s not just that all knowledge is controlled, it’s that your story, and your life, that information of it belongs to the library as well. And the library doesn’t want anyone else to know about certain things. And there is magic, but in an interesting and smaller way than something like Harry Potter.

Now, just because the library piece is interesting, this falls into that category of Divergent and The Hunger Games, where it is a small group against the big evil rulers. The plot is a bit simplistic that way. Caine does try and create two groups, the Library and the Burners who the protagonist has to deal with. Even the main character’s family being smugglers are another group that he bumps up again. But it is a tried and true, generally, plan for the plot.

What Doesn’t Work

Honestly, I don’t have too many complaints about the books. I think that compared to a lot of YA (young adult) fiction, that it works well. But that doesn’t mean that it is flawless. I think there are two things that have stood out to me, the biggest issue being the third book.

The second book ends on a cliffhanger. I won’t say what it is because that’ll give away part of the story and I don’t want to do that, I think it is a good series. But book three makes a key mistake in it, at least for me. When there is a cliffhanger, I want it resolved and then have the story progress. I don’t think the third book does that, it spends a long time working through the fallout of the cliffhanger, and the story just kind of stagnates. I get why that might be the case in how Caine writes it. We are getting our main introduction to a group of characters, but it’s too long and while stuff happens, it could have happened much faster.

The second part of book three is much stronger because the story progresses and progresses in a way that I really like. But that’s the last half or less of the book when it feels like the story progresses again. I think that book three just needed another pass by an editor to really tighten up the story, which would have probably made the book shorter, but it’d have felt like less of a slog to get through.

The other thing that bugged me and it isn’t a big deal, is she sets the time frame when this happens. That shouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s kind of dumb. There is zero reason for this to be set at any time, and with the bits of text we get from “real” people who are writing against the library, we can generally place when this story must be happening. I think the issue for me is how she added it into the story, it was dropped at the end of a paragraph like it was a big reveal ,it most certainly wasn’t. That just felt wrong with how it was handled.

What Works

The characters in the series are good. I think that Jess is an interesting protagonist which is nice. Too many YA series give you a really flat main character. Or that main character who is too good at everything. Jess is good but he’s not always the best at anything. The cast of characters around him are good as well. Not more interesting than him, but as interesting, because often YA books have the side characters be more interesting. It’s also a diverse cast of characters in terms of gender, race, religion, and sexuality, but it’s done very naturally. So the story flows and feel real world like.

I also like books about books, so the library controlling everything is an interesting premise. It shows the twisting of the ideas of the library and how they have turned something that isn’t good. And it is done in a logical way, some books, Divergent, for example, creates a premise that doesn’t make any sense, it isn’t the logical end to any situation. But in The Great Library series, it makes sense, like I said, there are real world parallels with some areas of the world controlling knowledge.

And I like, generally the story progression, like I said, the third book loses me by spending too much time on generally the wrong things. It takes that cliffhanger and drags it out without feeling like we progress the story. But generally, Caine doesn’t do that. She also doesn’t information dump the history of everything or how the world and magic works in the world. You find that out as you need to find it out. In fact, you find out some of it as the characters find out about it. So it feels natural in how she is writing to how it works in the real world.

Final Thoughts On The Great Library

Obviously, I am not done with the series. There are five books in it, and that feels right for the series. Any longer and the story would drag out, and any shorter, say going the trilogy route, and the story would feel rushed. Maybe four books would have been ideal, because of my issues with book three. I own all the books, which says something about the series though. It means that it’s one that I might come back to.

I will say, that is my strong recommendation for this series. It’s well written, interesting enough premise, though not that unique, and compared to some others, such as Divergent which I would actively recommend people not read, I’d come back to this one gladly. If you want to read a well written YA series, this is going to be a solid one. It won’t likely blow you away, but it won’t likely disappoint either. If you’re not interested in reading YA, I wouldn’t recommend this series because it is what it is.

Have you read The Great Library Series by Rachel Caine? What are your thoughts on it?

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