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A review by tiltingwindward
The Book on Fire by Keith Miller
4.0
Miller's second book is different from his first - it is crueler, less naive, more primal. The violence is closer to the surface, the humans are more human, the magic is tempered with more sorrow, but it retains the same mystical power over the reader as The Book of Flying. Balthazar, the morally-questionable protagonist, is less sympathetic than Pico the librarian, but no less compelling, and it can be argued that he loves books more.
This is not a book for all readers, not even all readers who loved Miller's first. It's crude in some places, rough around the edges in others, the characters aren't sympathetic, and the ending is ambiguous. But I have never seen articulated so clearly anywhere else what it means to be truly in love with books. Many books talk about booklovers, or the love of reading, but in vague, noncommittal terms. They don't explain adequately how it possesses you, how it can matter more than food or sleep or sex. It's clear that Miller is a reader in the deepest sense of the word, and no matter what other flaws this book may have, it speaks straight to like-minded hearts on that point.
This is not a book for all readers, not even all readers who loved Miller's first. It's crude in some places, rough around the edges in others, the characters aren't sympathetic, and the ending is ambiguous. But I have never seen articulated so clearly anywhere else what it means to be truly in love with books. Many books talk about booklovers, or the love of reading, but in vague, noncommittal terms. They don't explain adequately how it possesses you, how it can matter more than food or sleep or sex. It's clear that Miller is a reader in the deepest sense of the word, and no matter what other flaws this book may have, it speaks straight to like-minded hearts on that point.