Scan barcode
A review by krisrid
Bookworm by Christopher G. Nuttall
4.0
This was more a 3.5 star read for me as there were a few small things that I didn't love, but it got the fourth star for a combination of really clever detailed world-building, and a magical library with the librarian as our protagonist which I thought was cool and I loved it.
Elaine is every ordinary, unimportant "nobody" character we've ever met - in books or in life. She is nearly invisible in her job at the great library, in her society because she's an orphan of unknown parentage and in power, because she has virtually none . . . not so fast!
The blurb tells you that Elaine absorbs all the forbidden knowledge in her world by opening a book so that's not a spoiler. The adventure she is forced to embark on after opening that book, however is a wonderful, exciting, suspenseful and dangerous one. The reader gets to go along on that adventure and it is very entertaining.
I really got into the world the author has created here and I really enjoyed learning about it as Elaine's journey progressed.
I also liked the supporting cast of characters around Elaine, who helped - and sometimes hindered - her progress toward her objective. They all felt like fully realized people with their own stories, not just foils to do things for or to Elaine.
The pacing in this was great, nice ebbs and flows to move the story along but give the reader brief moments of respite to just get to know Elaine and see her doing normal things before ramping up the suspense.
Where I didn't love this was the one sex scene the book included. I'm going to put my distaste for the way that scene was written down to a combination of a male author's perceptions and vision being a different "flavour" than a female, and the fact that I've read a lot of traditional romance and probably have skewed visions of what romance looks like. Regardless, I found that scene: a) unnecessary and distracting from the rest of the story, and b) written in a way that made the sex feel harsh and aggressive. That is a personal reaction, and since it was the only scene in the book it was a minor gripe.
The other thing that bugged me - and that has absolutely nothing to do with the writing or the story - was a format thing. I listened to this as an audio book, and while the narrator did a great job at making the characters sound unique and bringing them to life, her accent kept switching from British to Australian and I found it extremely distracting. I suspect that the narrator is actually Australian and just accidentally fell out of the British from time to time without noticing it but because I am sensitive to accents I noticed every time we went from British to Australian and it took me out of the story as my brain grumped about it. The producer of this recording should have been more diligent while working with the narrator. Again, this is a minor complaint and nothing to do with the story. Unless you are listening to this as an audio book it won't apply.
Overall, I really enjoyed this, and would definitely read future books in this series, although I probably wouldn't do an audio version in future. I would recommend this to fantasy/sci-fi fans who think a magical library and a librarian as a protagonist sound cool - they are.
Elaine is every ordinary, unimportant "nobody" character we've ever met - in books or in life. She is nearly invisible in her job at the great library, in her society because she's an orphan of unknown parentage and in power, because she has virtually none . . . not so fast!
The blurb tells you that Elaine absorbs all the forbidden knowledge in her world by opening a book so that's not a spoiler. The adventure she is forced to embark on after opening that book, however is a wonderful, exciting, suspenseful and dangerous one. The reader gets to go along on that adventure and it is very entertaining.
I really got into the world the author has created here and I really enjoyed learning about it as Elaine's journey progressed.
I also liked the supporting cast of characters around Elaine, who helped - and sometimes hindered - her progress toward her objective. They all felt like fully realized people with their own stories, not just foils to do things for or to Elaine.
The pacing in this was great, nice ebbs and flows to move the story along but give the reader brief moments of respite to just get to know Elaine and see her doing normal things before ramping up the suspense.
Where I didn't love this was the one sex scene the book included. I'm going to put my distaste for the way that scene was written down to a combination of a male author's perceptions and vision being a different "flavour" than a female, and the fact that I've read a lot of traditional romance and probably have skewed visions of what romance looks like. Regardless, I found that scene: a) unnecessary and distracting from the rest of the story, and b) written in a way that made the sex feel harsh and aggressive. That is a personal reaction, and since it was the only scene in the book it was a minor gripe.
The other thing that bugged me - and that has absolutely nothing to do with the writing or the story - was a format thing. I listened to this as an audio book, and while the narrator did a great job at making the characters sound unique and bringing them to life, her accent kept switching from British to Australian and I found it extremely distracting. I suspect that the narrator is actually Australian and just accidentally fell out of the British from time to time without noticing it but because I am sensitive to accents I noticed every time we went from British to Australian and it took me out of the story as my brain grumped about it. The producer of this recording should have been more diligent while working with the narrator. Again, this is a minor complaint and nothing to do with the story. Unless you are listening to this as an audio book it won't apply.
Overall, I really enjoyed this, and would definitely read future books in this series, although I probably wouldn't do an audio version in future. I would recommend this to fantasy/sci-fi fans who think a magical library and a librarian as a protagonist sound cool - they are.