Reviews - The Guardian of Surfaces

617 reviews for:

The Guardian of Surfaces

Bothayna Al-Essa

4.04 AVERAGE

charlotte_jewel's review against another edition

3.0

The world in which this book takes place is the Iowa GOP’s dream, and that is something that I found quite upsetting!

sockfood1's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I loved the inclusion of other banned books and a variety of different stories. The ending confused me but I feel like the story overall was very impactful.

dandyfiasco's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

irgendwieantonia's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark reflective sad tense

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

librarian_aj's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It feels like I'm devaluing this book by giving it a star rating at all. This book ate it's way into me as books burrow into the Book Censor himself. I would recommend the reader to stop and read the books he is reading to better understand the Book Censor and this book.

Content Warnings

sandalwood_neroli's review against another edition

4.25

dark reflective medium-paced

HUMAN EXISTENCE IS SUFFERING
THE ROOT OF SUFFERING IS DESIRE
THE ROOT OF DESIRE IS IMAGINATION

When the blurb says that this book "marries the steely dystopia of Orwell’s 1984 with the madcap absurdity of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland", it means it.

Imagination had truly begun to shrivel and fade away, proving that if you control a human being’s circumstances, you can drive their development in a certain direction.

In a dystopian society with an all-seeing government, blanket book censoring based on "the forbidden trinity of God, government, and sex", the focus on "Positive Realism" and the squashing of all forms of imagination, we have a new Book Censor who reads a banned book, and it changes the trajectory of his life and the lives of those around him.

Thought-provoking and wacky.