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A review by phyrre
Rebel in the Library of Ever by Zeno Alexander
2.0
You can read my full review on my blog, The Bookwyrm's Den, here
Many thanks to Edelweiss and Sourcebooks for Young Readers for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
I confess that when I read the first book, The Library of Ever, I didn’t love it. I was pretty lukewarm on it, but still gave it three stars because the ending seemed to have promise for the series, and it did feature a lot of things I think it’s important for kids to see in books. This one, though? I felt like it took a wrong turn somewhere.
Rebel in the Library of Ever is a book about books, in which the main setting is a library, the heroes are pre-teen children, and there’s a focus on learning and STEM.
While I can definitely appreciate what this book is trying to do, I think it fell a bit short of its goal. There were so many subplots that it was hard to keep track of the actual plot, and the story felt very episodic, without anything really tying the mini episodes together.
My Thoughts:
- I can’t completely tell who the target audience for this is. The simplistic writing makes me think it’s younger MG, but at the same time, there are a lot of big words, and the writing is oddly formal, in a way that seems like it would turn off younger MG readers. I noticed this over and over again, where instead of taking the path of least resistance as far as simple wording, the sentences get a little convoluted. Combine that with clunky dialogue that sounds nothing like any 12-year-old (ish?) that I’ve met, and add to that the fact that, for some reason, the prose doesn’t use any contractions, and this contemporary (or maybe slightly futuristic) book sounds a bit stuffy.
- There’s a new character introduced, Lucy, and she was quite a lot of fun. Unlike Lenora, she isn’t the bookish sort. She doesn’t read very often (or at all, really), and she doesn’t see the merits of the library. I thought her addition was great! While it’s nice to see the library from Lenora’s perspective, it’s not quite the same as seeing someone discover the wonders of it for the first time, so it presented an interesting new dynamic, I thought.
- Like the first book, this one felt extremely episodic, to the point where it was hard to find the plot between all the subplots. The subplots are cute as far as teaching kids random facts … but it’s just that: random facts. The book opens with the entirely realistic situation of a boy and his mother asking the librarian what the largest number is, because the boy doesn’t think his mother’s answer of infinity is right. Which … there are soooo many debates that could be had around this, especially considering the answer that Lenora decides is “right” instead of infinity. My point is, given the contemporary nature of this book, it’d be nice to come up with an actual question a librarian might be asked that’s hard to google. Unfortunately, since this specific question was the main focus Lenora had for quite a while, this meant suffering through several chapters of math concepts, and if you learn anything at all about me, it’s that I hate math. This would be great for kids who like math, but again … who’s the target here? The writing sounds like it’s meant for younger MG readers, and I’m not sure they’re going to be able to wrap their minds around a googol (a one with a hundred zeroes) or TREE(3). Or I’m not sure they’re going to care. The first book, I felt, had some fun random facts, at least, but this one’s focus on math just completely lost me.
- The Big Bad for this book is a combination of the new director of the library and the board of directors, and as someone who works in a library, that’s a bit disappointing. I’ll tell you right now: my director is fabulous. The library probably wouldn’t exist without her continually fighting for it. Same for our board of directors, who are always in and out of the library and have fought hard for it. So to have a book set in a library, espousing the wonders and magic of libraries, but then to make the director and board of directors the Big Bad was really disappointing to me. That’s definitely not the message I want to send to kids.
Many thanks to Edelweiss and Sourcebooks for Young Readers for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
I confess that when I read the first book, The Library of Ever, I didn’t love it. I was pretty lukewarm on it, but still gave it three stars because the ending seemed to have promise for the series, and it did feature a lot of things I think it’s important for kids to see in books. This one, though? I felt like it took a wrong turn somewhere.
Rebel in the Library of Ever is a book about books, in which the main setting is a library, the heroes are pre-teen children, and there’s a focus on learning and STEM.
While I can definitely appreciate what this book is trying to do, I think it fell a bit short of its goal. There were so many subplots that it was hard to keep track of the actual plot, and the story felt very episodic, without anything really tying the mini episodes together.
My Thoughts:
- I can’t completely tell who the target audience for this is. The simplistic writing makes me think it’s younger MG, but at the same time, there are a lot of big words, and the writing is oddly formal, in a way that seems like it would turn off younger MG readers. I noticed this over and over again, where instead of taking the path of least resistance as far as simple wording, the sentences get a little convoluted. Combine that with clunky dialogue that sounds nothing like any 12-year-old (ish?) that I’ve met, and add to that the fact that, for some reason, the prose doesn’t use any contractions, and this contemporary (or maybe slightly futuristic) book sounds a bit stuffy.
- There’s a new character introduced, Lucy, and she was quite a lot of fun. Unlike Lenora, she isn’t the bookish sort. She doesn’t read very often (or at all, really), and she doesn’t see the merits of the library. I thought her addition was great! While it’s nice to see the library from Lenora’s perspective, it’s not quite the same as seeing someone discover the wonders of it for the first time, so it presented an interesting new dynamic, I thought.
- Like the first book, this one felt extremely episodic, to the point where it was hard to find the plot between all the subplots. The subplots are cute as far as teaching kids random facts … but it’s just that: random facts. The book opens with the entirely realistic situation of a boy and his mother asking the librarian what the largest number is, because the boy doesn’t think his mother’s answer of infinity is right. Which … there are soooo many debates that could be had around this, especially considering the answer that Lenora decides is “right” instead of infinity. My point is, given the contemporary nature of this book, it’d be nice to come up with an actual question a librarian might be asked that’s hard to google. Unfortunately, since this specific question was the main focus Lenora had for quite a while, this meant suffering through several chapters of math concepts, and if you learn anything at all about me, it’s that I hate math. This would be great for kids who like math, but again … who’s the target here? The writing sounds like it’s meant for younger MG readers, and I’m not sure they’re going to be able to wrap their minds around a googol (a one with a hundred zeroes) or TREE(3). Or I’m not sure they’re going to care. The first book, I felt, had some fun random facts, at least, but this one’s focus on math just completely lost me.
- The Big Bad for this book is a combination of the new director of the library and the board of directors, and as someone who works in a library, that’s a bit disappointing. I’ll tell you right now: my director is fabulous. The library probably wouldn’t exist without her continually fighting for it. Same for our board of directors, who are always in and out of the library and have fought hard for it. So to have a book set in a library, espousing the wonders and magic of libraries, but then to make the director and board of directors the Big Bad was really disappointing to me. That’s definitely not the message I want to send to kids.