“The Great Library of Tomorrow” by Rosalia Aguilar Solace

This was fun but flawed. It couldn’t quite pick a lane; much of it was perfect for a YA book, but the author didn’t quite embrace that. Still, even with that, this book definitely has the potential to completely alter the course of a bookish 12 year old’s life if they read it at the right moment.

(please note that I have no prejudice against YA books at all; I love reading them)

This reminded me more of The Neverending Story than anything else. The titular Great Library is a hidden magical library that serves as a sort of hub between the Earth we all know and Paperworld, a multiverse created by, and creating, the stories that humans tell each other. There are links between Earth and the realms of Paperworld that are profound but not well understood; disturbances in one can echo in the other. But Paperworld is under threat, and that puts the Library and the Earth in danger as well.

We have four co-protagonists. One is a Sage, one of a handful of individuals who embody the greatest virtues of the Library (Hope in this case) and works to protect the Library and Paperworld. One is a young woman who grew up in the Library, and gets swept up in events. One is a man from Mexico City, a would-be author who is brought into the Library (by the Library itself). And lastly we have a young man from one of the worlds of the greater Paperworld, who lives in a World Tree.

As I said at the beginning, this is the kind of book that could change a bookish kid’s life (hence the comparison to The Neverending Story). The notion that you could walk down a disused-looking aisle in a bookshop for library, find yourself in a magical library at the heart of Everything, and go on adventures to different worlds? All created by the power of stories? That’s exactly the kind of thing that would have lit my imagination on fire at the correct time.

It’s also why I say that the author should have embraced writing a young adult book. The book almost is young adult, but not quite. It’s a little too hefty, a little too graphic in descriptions of violence.

But I certainly enjoyed reading it, and am looking forward to the sequel.