DNF Audiobook Review – The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, Narrated by Hillary Huber (2/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
Length: 16 hours and 47 minutes
Publisher: HighBridge
Release Date: June 16, 2015
ASIN: B00XV0XR7Y
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 2/5 stars
“Carolyn’s not so different from the other human beings around her. She’s sure of it. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. She even remembers what clothes are for. After all, she was a normal American herself once. That was a long time ago, of course – before the time she calls “adoption day”, when she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father.
Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead. And when he was disobeyed, the consequences were terrible. In the years since Father took her in, Carolyn hasn’t gotten out much. Instead she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father’s ancient Pelapi customs. They’ve studied the books in his library and learned some of the secrets behind his equally ancient power. Sometimes they’ve wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God. Now Father is missing. And if God truly is dead, the only thing that matters is who will inherit his library – and with it power over all of creation.
As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her. But can Carolyn win? She’s sure of it. What she doesn’t realize is that her victory may come at an unacceptable price – because in becoming a god, she’s forgotten a great deal about being human.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this as an audiobook through Audible.com.
Audiobook Quality (4/5): This audiobook quality was fine. It jumps around a lot and sometimes it was hard to tell who was talking and what characters we were following.
Story (2/5): I stopped listening to this about 25% of the way in and returned it to Audible. It just was not my cup of tea. The story follows a bunch of people who were raised by a man known only as Father. Father taught them to each be/represent a section of knowledge and Carolyn is the catalogue for Language. However, then something happened and Father disappeared and these rather disturbed adults can’t get back into their home. They are basically trying to track down Father through manipulation and killing.
Characters (2/5): There are a lot of characters thrown at you at once and they are hard to keep track off. All of the characters are incredibly vicious to each other, they don’t really act human anymore but more like animals. I didn’t like them and don’t think the characters were a strong part of the story.
Setting (2/5): The setting was all over the place. Our characters jump around between different countries and maybe even worlds?? trying to find Father. Again the setting wasn’t a main driver for the story and wasn’t well defined.
Writing Style (1/5): This writing style was seriously not for me. A lot of the story is vicious just for the sake of being vicious. The placement of intestines after killings are described in detail and everyone has raunchy porn on their computer screen they need to close. Just a lot of gory vicious detail that doesn’t seem to apply to the actual story.
I also did not like how the story jumped around between so many random scenes so quickly. I am going to assume that this all comes together in the end. But since I was dreading listening to this every time I got into the car I will never know…and I am okay with that.
Summary (2/5): Overall this was just so far from the type of book I would ever enjoy I struggle to figure out why I got it in the first place. The premise does sound interesting but the story is more about gory visceral shock value than anything cohesive. Not for me at all and I am incredibly happy that Audible will let you return audiobooks because I would have been very sad to have wasted an audiobook credit on this.