3 stars
A little bit cottagecore. A little bit romance. Plenty of magic.
When introverted librarian Kiela is forced to flee the Great Library of Alyssium due to violent political upheaval, she sets out with Caz, a sentient spider plant, and a few crates of spellbooks to travel to her childhood home on an outer island, determined to keep the library’s remaining books safe at all costs.
An interesting story overall. I really enjoyed the magic system. I loved the process of researching spells and ingredients, and how they were tweaked and experimented with.
The book is filled with wonderful side characters. Caz is absolutely perfect and I want him in my life.
Didn’t love the main character. She’s mostly just a librarian stereotype, super introverted, prefers books to people, and content to stay in her quiet corner of the library for the rest of her life. Honestly, it didn’t really seem like she actually liked being a librarian. She liked books, sure, but she mostly just complained when scholars interrupted her reading… you know, because librarians just get to sit around and read all day…
Librarian Kiela was intolerable. I much preferred following her pursuits of jam making, spell casting, and forging new friendships on the island.
Went into this expecting a cozy read about books and magic, but I think this was marketed as more cozy than it actually is. The library literally burns down in the first chapter. Maybe I’m just spoiled from the magically cozy Legends & Lattes or not-so-magical-but-deeply-cozy The Kamogawa Food Detectives. I wanted more focus on the gardening, baked goods, home repair, and trying new jam recipes. The story was interesting enough but it kept trying to balance relaxing pastimes and mundane chores with the aftermath of political upheaval and I don’t know if there is a perfect balance for those two themes.
A decent story with memorable side characters and a simply divine cover.