A review by lesserjoke
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

4.0

This is a pretty weird book, and I'm still not entirely convinced it's my kind of weird. But it definitely comes close at times, and by about the halfway point of the novel, I found I simply couldn't put it down. I think it reminds me most of American Gods -- in both its slipstream presentation of everyday Americana and its intricate supernatural plots within plots -- but whereas Neil Gaiman's classic story blends myths inherited from across the world's religions, author Scott Hawkins has offered up his own surreal arcana of talking lions, kidnapped children, blackmailed presidents, and lines of divine succession. All of that in an ancient library that might just be in the subdivision a block over from your house.

It's bizarre and it's bloody -- trigger warning for implied rape as well as some pretty graphic violence against both animals and humans -- but I have a feeling it's really going to stick with me.