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A review by writings_of_a_reader
The Archived by V.E. Schwab
4.0
Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
In this story the dead are called Histories and their bodies rest in a place called The Archive. Each body has a story to tell, and only the archive librarians can read them. Recruited by her grandfather, Mackenzie Bishop has been been working for The Archive for just four years. The Archive is a secret place that not many people know about so Mac has kept it a secret from the rest of her family just as her grandfather did. After her grandfather dies, Mac becomes a Keeper. When Mac discovers someone is deliberately altering Histories and erasing essential chapters she sets out to find out who is doing it and why.
The Archived is kind of like Warehouse 13 with dead bodies. The bodies are copies of dead people that contain the history of those people. Or picture a library with stacks of morgue type drawers containing these bodies instead of books. Sometimes these bodies wake up and escape and it's the Keeper's job to return them to the archive. The younger the body, or the more recent the history, the more restless they are and the more prone to waking up they are. The older the history the deeper asleep they are. Most of the time the older histories do not wake up. I liked that the older histories were asleep and kind of forgotten; a lot like real history is to a lot of people. How many times do we really think about things that happened a long time ago? Mostly we think about more recent events.
I thought this was a pretty original idea. I liked the character Mac and I also liked Wesley, even if I could have done without the guyliner. Yes, he wears guyliner. The biggest weakness of the book to me is that there is no real reason given for why the archive exists, other than it's the Keeper's job to protect the histories. It's kept a secret from everyone but the people who work in it or for it, so who really uses it and why are all of those histories stored there? It just kind of seems to exist for no reason. Despite that I enjoyed reading this so I am planning on reading the next book. Maybe the reason the archive exists will be explained in it.
Review also posted at Writings of a Reader
In this story the dead are called Histories and their bodies rest in a place called The Archive. Each body has a story to tell, and only the archive librarians can read them. Recruited by her grandfather, Mackenzie Bishop has been been working for The Archive for just four years. The Archive is a secret place that not many people know about so Mac has kept it a secret from the rest of her family just as her grandfather did. After her grandfather dies, Mac becomes a Keeper. When Mac discovers someone is deliberately altering Histories and erasing essential chapters she sets out to find out who is doing it and why.
The Archived is kind of like Warehouse 13 with dead bodies. The bodies are copies of dead people that contain the history of those people. Or picture a library with stacks of morgue type drawers containing these bodies instead of books. Sometimes these bodies wake up and escape and it's the Keeper's job to return them to the archive. The younger the body, or the more recent the history, the more restless they are and the more prone to waking up they are. The older the history the deeper asleep they are. Most of the time the older histories do not wake up. I liked that the older histories were asleep and kind of forgotten; a lot like real history is to a lot of people. How many times do we really think about things that happened a long time ago? Mostly we think about more recent events.
I thought this was a pretty original idea. I liked the character Mac and I also liked Wesley, even if I could have done without the guyliner. Yes, he wears guyliner. The biggest weakness of the book to me is that there is no real reason given for why the archive exists, other than it's the Keeper's job to protect the histories. It's kept a secret from everyone but the people who work in it or for it, so who really uses it and why are all of those histories stored there? It just kind of seems to exist for no reason. Despite that I enjoyed reading this so I am planning on reading the next book. Maybe the reason the archive exists will be explained in it.
Review also posted at Writings of a Reader