The Invisible Library Review

This week's novel is The Invisible Library, dimension hopping spy librarians by  Genevieve Cogman.

Irene is a librarian for the Invisible Library, which collects books from different dimensions.  In order to collect these books, she has to be part thief, part spy, infiltrating different worlds and tracking down rare books.  Her latest mission is to find a copy of the Brother's Grimm from a quarantined world infested with chaos, meaning that fairy magic, steampunk technology, and supernatural creatures all exist together in pandemonium.  Added to this, she has a new trainee to bring along and keep safe, her former, manipulative supervisor is trying to take her mission, the librarian stationed there gives them way less information than they need, and the book she needs has been stolen and every factions is looking for it.

Irene's character is a lot of fun.  She's resourceful and clever, she comes up with plans lickity split, and she can blend in and act the part.  What's funny is that no one around her can read her mind enough to pick up on her plans.  These are especially cute with her trainee, Kai, who never picks up on anything.

Some way down the corridor on the far side, once out of earshot, she said, "I apologize for that."
"Oh, don't worry," Kai replied.  He twitched a shoulder in casual dismissal, seemingly fascinated by the beech paneling and decorated plaster ceiling.  His voice was arctic in tone.  "You're quite right; I shouldn't have made a noise and disturbed other students at work.  I apologize for offending against the Library rules--"
"Look," Irene said before he could get any more sarcastic, "don't get me wrong.  I'm not apologizing for being rule oriented."
"Oh?"
"No.  I'm apologizing for snapping at you to shut you up, because I couldn't discuss classified information with someone else in the room."
Kai took a few more paces.  "Oh," he said.  "Right."

Her mentor/mentee relationship with Kai is fun and sweet.  And that makes the vagueness of all her other relationships all the more confusing.  Several times I felt like I missed something or like I was seeing things that weren't there.  For example, people seemed to think she was attracted to the detective who is following them around and helping out, but I never felt any chemistry or romantic interest on her part.  In fact, it felt more like Kai had a crush on him.  And then it felt like Irene and her former supervisor, Bradamant, had a thing or almost had a thing or had a thing that went sour...I don't know.  Maybe Irene doesn't know either, because she's too rational to focus on her emotions and so they slip past her, but it could also be that the author's trying to make relationships out of nowhere, and it could be that I'm crazy.  No one can say.

And then there is the world where they spend the majority of the book.  That dimension has been infected with chaos, so a lot of it doesn't make sense.  I wish there was some jumping around between worlds so we could see the differences, or at least see a world that had some order to it (the glimpses of the Library are intriguing).

There was a lot of action and intrigue and mystery that was all well done, I hope there's even more to chew on with the sequel.

***

Next week: The Lie Tree, YA about lies, lies, and more lies by Frances Hardinge.