Review Detail

This is so complicated, in the best way possible. And I loved every second of it.

The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson is YA fantasy/sci-fy novel that features a god wanting to kill a girl. Frieda is a daughter of the library, a legendary place that help facilitate peace between the three systems. But not everything is as it seems, as the library holds a great many secrets that only Frieda can harvest. Her world changes after she meets Joshua and Nergüi, two important key figures in her transformation. Though they only see their self-preservation above none other. And the only way to save themselves, is for Feida to journey into the depths of the library and make enemies with a war god.

This book had me at library. I am a sucker for just about any story that features a library. And I mostly blame that on account of my love for Victoria Schwab's The Archived and Geneveive Cogman's The Invisible Library. And the fact that Johnson rose the stakes with the added bonus of war god just made it all the better.

Though I will say, at times I found myself becoming quite disoriented with the setting changes and time skips. As we often hop from Freida's chats with the god, to then her time with Joshua and Nergüi. But I overall loved the flow of the plot, as it created a lulling narrative that came from Freida's own mouth.

At the end of it all, The Library of Broken Worlds is this: A love letter to what makes us human, in the harshest and (rightfully so) criticizing light. And I am all here for it.