A review by beepbeep101
The Last Heir to Blackwood Library by Hester Fox

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Intriguing enough to finish, but the more I think about it afterwards, the less it makes sense.

So, this was a very intriguing premise, but the way the unreliable narrator is executed just makes it confusing.
Once you get to the end, it finally makes sense that Ivy was losing her memories and didn’t remember things that are now revealed at the end as having happened. I figured out much earlier that she was losing her memories, of course, as that’s what she discovered was the method of the library, but there were far too few hints throughout that she had forgotten things. The repeated conversation with the maid was good, but otherwise we mostly just had Ralph being annoying by never answering her when she tried to ask what was going on. Instead he just maddeningly only said, “Oh, you know,” and then, seemingly inexplicably got mad at her when she didn’t, in fact, know. When he and the rest of the staff were finally willing to help Ivy and reveal more information at the end, it felt more like they were suddenly nice than that Ivy had suddenly regained memories.


I’m honestly not sure how this could be done better. Maybe multiple points of view? Maybe epistolary and her letters/entries contradict themselves? Something. Again, I liked the premise, but the bulk of the time it felt like vague writing rather than the protagonist questioning her reality.


No dragons, unless the library ate them and I forgot about them
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