Most of my reviews here are 4 and 5 stars. It's rare for me to give something less than 3 stars. I don't think this is because I'm particularly generous; I'm just choosy about the books I read. I generally don't bother with something if I don't have solid reasons to expect it to be better than mediocre. Point is: I read a lot of good books. A lot of books that I give 5 enthusiastic stars to. A lot of books that I shove at friends and family with reckless zeal.
And all of this buildup is to say: The Library at Mount Char is one of the best, most original books I've ever read.
It's the /r/Fantasy book of the month for October, so since September is almost over I thought I'd go ahead and get a little bit of a head start. I ran into trouble when I couldn't put it down and finished in two days. Sorry folks, I won't be reading along with you all. Mea culpa.
So the book itself. It's got that Neil Gaiman-esque fairy story feel, rather than Tolkien-esque quest/adventure story feel. I like to say that Gaiman writes portal fantasy cleverly disguised as urban fantasy, which is something Mt. Char shares. The book really has that through-the-looking-glass feel; of the two protagonists, one is a regular guy, the other is a woman who was taken through the formentioned looking glass as a child.
One of the most striking things in this book is the way that Hawkins makes everything seem normal, from the right point of view. Carolyn might have had a bizarre and wonderful and terrible upbringing, but from her perspective, it's just ... the way she grew up. It's all she knows. Hawkins somehow managed to convey the strangeness of her childhood while also showing it as normal.
An interesting side effect of all this: as the story went on, and what's going on is gradually revealed, I was increasingly unsure whether Carolyn was trying to do something terrible, or to stop something terrible. And despite not knowing, I didn't care. I was rooting for her anyway.
Hawking reveals the layers of what is going on gradually and steadily. I don't know that I ever got a specific moment where there was a big reveal of one sort or another; rather, it was a gradual escalation, so that rather than a big twist of a wham moment, it just grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let me put the book down as I learned more and more.
And the result is a story that is horrifying and beautiful and totally, completely, unique. I've never read anything like it before, and I would be more than a little surprised if I ever do again.
I don't mean to sound pompous, and I'm actively trying not to be hyperbolic. This book is JUST THAT GOOD. Go read it. It's amazing. Thank me later.