Reviews - The Guardian of Surfaces

598 reviews for:

The Guardian of Surfaces

Bothayna Al-Essa

4.04 AVERAGE

birdcageheart's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

evanmince's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

theriverstyx's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

minnowslibrary's review against another edition

4.0

“He found himself attracted to certain books, and would sneak them out of the bags and boxes that lined the corridors at work, scurrying out to his car with them tucked inside his coat. These were books he felt he was meant to read, books that wanted him in particular, that called his name.”

I’d been wanting to read this book for a while, and I’m so glad I finally got around to it. The Book Censor’s Library is a weird little fairytale kind of book, all about censoring and banning books and outlawing imagination. I love books about books, and this one totally showed its love for many classics, and of course the dystopian censorship greats that came before it like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451!

The main character of this story gets a job as a book censor, reading books all day for the government and highlighting any and all writing that goes against the government or refers to anything pre-Revolution. When the censor is assigned to read a new translation of Zorba the Greek, he falls in love with reading and finds himself going down a dangerous path of rebellion.

This story was filled with magnificent banned books libraries and bookstores, mysterious keepers of the books and writers, imagination, metaphors, and white rabbits. It was a wonderful balance of bleak and satirical with that sprinkle of bookish magic. 🪄 I really enjoyed it!

I also loved the illustrations by Mohammad Al Mohanna throighout, I think it added a bit of that picture book whimsy that the government so hated in the story.