The Astral Library
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3.8 • 132 Ratings
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling author Kate Quinn comes a gorgeously written fantastical adventure which poses the question: Have you ever wished you could live inside a book? Welcome to the Astral Library, where books are not just objects, but doors to new worlds, new lives, and new futures.
Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives...inside their favorite books.
The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy—Alix, the Librarian, or the Library itself? Includes a bonus conversation with Kate Quinn, Saskia Maarleveld, and Tessa Woodward (editor of The Astral Library).
Customer Reviews
The Astral Library
Narration was excellent, the story just so so. I much prefer her historical fiction
Huge disappointment
1.5 ⭐️ The premise of this book sounds great (girl needs an escape from her life, finds a magical library to offer a refuge and a place where she can live inside her favorite story). I wanted to love this book but was endlessly frustrated by almost every aspect.
- Alix (FMC) is abrasive and rude - I wanted to empathize but couldn’t connect with her because she was very unlikable for me.
- The dialogue was very disconnected because many descriptions were over-written and flowery, and the FMC used complicated words, but then inserts swear words way more than necessary. It really took me out of the story.
- The author relies heavily on references to her favorite books, then makes specific references that fall flat unless the reader is also intimately familiar with those stories.
- The plot jumps between several books but doesn’t go any deeper than a surface reference of a place or event or character, so the reader doesn’t get to feel immersed in the world of the books we’re jumping into.
- At about 2/3 we realize the big “conflict” is just library bureaucracy, and the climax is an argument with the board.
Some authors do a great job of writing a satire or social commentary disguised as fiction, but Quinn’s attempt did not work. So much potential… wasted.
Also, the romance felt very forced because the characters had zero chemistry.
The narration was great and the only silver lining of this disaster.
Undone
To live in a book, there’s so many places I just travel from book to book.
Story for me was interesting but slow, I put the book down many times and forced my self to finish, character was not likable.