A review by michael5000
The Archivist by Martha Cooley

Did not finish book.

I got about halfway through The Archivist, enjoying it less and less for what seemed to me its stilted characterization and especially its structure, a regimented series of juxtapositions presented as first-person reminiscence. Because people just do not tell their own stories in such a stylized fashion, the narrator -- the eponymous archivist -- comes off as false and unnatural in this scheme. When the improbably information-rich diary entries began, I reached for the best escape hatch I know for exiting a mediocre book: I found a plot synopsis online and deliberately ruined the ending. What I saw there made me glad I had decided not to stick it out.