I was dreading this book. I found this series last summer, and the first one was so magical and creative. The second one, though, was already a bit of a struggle, focusing on the darkness of the story being explored, losing the magic that made it so interesting even while exploring dark themes. So was I worried about whether this would get the story back on track? Of course. Then I saw this novel was around 360 pages – while the length surprised me since this is the conclusion to sweeping fantasy trilogy, it also made me think at least it would be over quick.
And overall? I think the final conclusion/epilogue worked. The 330 pages leading up to it? Took way too long to get to the point, adding too many chapters that really felt like they were only there to drag out the story, and reinforce the ideas from the previous novels of how the oppressed become the oppressors become the oppressed etc. The second novel hammered that in more than enough, especially with the cannibalism scenes so not sure there was much point to the “Carlotta as ghost queen” chapters.
While in some ways, I liked the new character Anne and her chapters the most, something about their inclusion here also feels cheap and undeserved. I can’t believe Lawrence decided to insert 2 of the characters into a side trip to Nazi Germany as a way to emphasize the trilogy’a messages about fascism and the cyclical nature of history. I understand the parallelism he was trying to draw and the point he was trying to make but it just felt wrong to use real history here in this way, especially since he had done a good job of setting it up in his fantasy worlds.
The biggest problem is that the first novel was a story in fantastical setting, about the magic of books, filled with interesting characters it was easy to care about. They were in a world of political turmoil with bigoted leaders, and it was obvious history was about to take a dark turn but it was all those elements together that made it appealing. Those characters are all still here but they no longer feel like characters as much as they feel like pawns being moved around for some philosophical statement about knowledge. The central frame for this has been that the library is at war with itself and two different philosophies – unrestricted knowledge and information for and to all, or restricting it to prevent knowledge from being used in harmful ways. To get to the end point, this novel separates the characters, throws them across worlds and time, and then keeps reshuffling them. Oh, some characters are back together? Let’s take them out of the world they have been in, even if there has been a lot of jumping back and forth within the timeline, and introduce portals to “might have beens” and “could have beens” – and have them get separated all over again. Let’s have this one king who was an evil bureaucrat and part of Livira’s world keep playing a larger role in all this when he was previously just the current monarch and symbol of petty minded evil. Some of the choices made some sense by the end but it wasn’t an engaging or enjoyable journey. Why should I as a reader care about the “maybe” worlds? It was tedious and frustrating journey, all the more frustrating because of the promise of the first book.
So … obviously there is no reason to read this one on its own, and only as a conclusion to the trilogy. Within that context, you could probably skip large parts of the middle of this novel without missing anything significant. The bigger question of course is whether the trilogy is worth it and I would lean towards no. If you are able to read book 1 and decide it is a stand alone novel with an open ending, then sure. But book 2 and 3 simply never live up to that promise, getting bogged down in their own philosophy and losing the magic of the characters.