ARC Review – The Library Suicides

From Goodreads:

You can get in. But you can’t get out. Welcome to the library…

Twins Ana and Nan are lost after the death of their mother. Everyone knows who drove Elena, the renowned novelist, to suicide – her long-term literary critic, Eben. But the twins need proof if they’re going to get revenge.

Desperate to clear his name, Eben requests access to Elena’s diaries at the National Library where the twins work, and they see an opportunity. With careful planning, the twins lock down the labyrinthine building, trapping their colleagues, the public and most importantly Eben inside. But as a rogue security guard starts freeing hostages, the plan unravels. And what began as a single-minded act of revenge blooms into a complex unravelling of loyalties, motives and what it is that makes us who we are.

Unfortunately this one really wasn’t for me, but I could see it had a lot of potential.

I just didn’t like any of the characters so found it very difficult to actually care for their cause and why they were doing what it was they were doing. The Twins didn’t make much sense and it took a very long time to get to know them and their motivations, their voices were not very distinct from each other so became difficult to read. Eben was just so lack lustre I didn’t care for him or his fate. I honestly couldn’t care less what was happening to him. And while Dan felt the most normal and likeable to start with I also found me not really developing any interest in what happened to him either. With no real investment in the characters it just felt very slow.

I also found the dystopian world to be at a strange juxtaposition to the plot. It felt very discordant to what was going on in the central plot and more of a McGuffin to allow certain things to happen (no security in the library etc). I thought the dystopian world had a lot of potential and could have been really fascinating but this was the wrong story for it. There was so much potential in this world though. It was like this interesting glimmer in the background that we never really got to see a lot of. I think if I had read more about what was happening in this dystopian world I would have been a lot more engaged.

Overall I just kept putting this book down and lost interest in it. There wasn’t enough to make me pick it back up. It felt slow and predictable (I guessed a lot of the reveals). I ended up somewhat dragging myself though it so I have concluded I probably wasn’t the correct audience for this one.