Level: Young Adult
Recommended Age: 14+
Genres: Fantasy, Adventure
Tags: Drama, Magic, Romance
Mature Content:

  - Moderate violence: physical attacks, injury, death, allusions to physical and sexual abuse.

  - Mild sexuality: Lightly detailed kissing scenes.

“Knowledge always has the potential to be dangerous. It is a more powerful weapon than any sword or spell.”

Elisabeth is the only person ever raised in a library. Every other orphan has to wait 13 years before they can move in and start studying their apprenticeship. But Elisabeth has been raised by grimoires, books containing spells that can come alive and turn into monsters if they’re not contained, and wardens, the librarians who have sworn off magic and its evil influences in order to care for the priceless knowledge needed for sorcerers. But one day their most powerful grimoire comes alive and gets loose, and Elisabeth is blamed. This spurs a journey all over the kingdom as she not only proves her innocence, but discovers a centuries old plot of power and destruction.

Review:

“Books, too, had hearts, though they were not the same as people’s, and a book’s heart could be broken: she had seen it happen before. Grimoires that refused to open, their voices gone silent, or whose ink faded and bled across the pages like tears.”

Every avid reader dreams of growing up in a magical library, and I can fully understand the concept of dangerous books. Knowledge is power, and even though Elisabeth’s immediate instinct is bashing heads with her sword, her mind is her greatest weapon.

Elisabeth is a fantastic protagonist. She drives the plot forward with her strength and fearlessness, and stubborn refusal to give up. She prizes knowledge, especially knowledge contained in libraries, and no one has a way with books like her. She sticks to her morals and helps the people around her, but is willing to learn and compromise her lifelong values when it’s clear she was taught wrong.

The romance is very light, with the main focus of the story on Elisabeth’s journey of uncovering truth and resolving her own inner conflict. Her interactions with Nathaniel and Silas are hilarious, and I wished we could have seen more of Katrien. I would love a sequel focused on Katrien, but we’ll see what the author decides. The world building is very impressive, and I thought the way the author wrote both grimoires and demons was very well done. There are moments that are more dramatic and serious, but between Elisabeth’s bluntness, Silas’s dry commentary, and Nathaniel’s sass, this book has plenty of humor.

If you enjoy the Mortal Instruments series or Howl’s Moving Castle, this is a good choice! It’s a love letter to everyone who has found peace in a library and chosen books as their love language.