Note: This is the third book in The Great Library series and may contain spoilers for those who haven’t read the first two books.
Jess Brightwell and his friends have been captured by Burners and taken to Philadelphia in America. Not only does he still need to figure out how they’re going to defeat the Library, but now he has to figure out how to escape the Burners without getting killed by either group. Jess thinks he may be able to get some help from his family, but the Brightwell’s don’t provide their aid for free–even for family.
THESE BOOKS ARE SO GOOD. And the covers are AMAZING (just look at it!). For some reason I thought this series was just going to be a trilogy (perhaps that was the original plan) but come to find out, there are actually going to be at least two more books. This is both frustrating and extremely exciting news. I love the world that Caine has created so I don’t want to let go of it too soon, but I also need to know how Jess and everybody else gets out of this mess. What I can say is that it definitely feels like Caine has this series planned out from start to finish. Some things from the first two books tie in to things in this book and I’m sure that’ll extend into books four and five as well. I love when it feels like an author has done a lot of work in developing not only the world, but the overall plot as well.
The characters were great as always. Even though the plot is a little slow moving, I don’t find that I mind because it just helps the characters to develop and enables me to make connections with all of them (literally, all of them). They’ve definitely developed over the three books in a way that’s genuine to the characters that we were originally introduced to. I love that Caine includes a good level of diversity (race, gender, sexuality, etc.) without hitting the reader over the head with it. It’s present and it effects who the characters are without seeming like a stereotype or an excuse to not develop the character further.
Something that’s so hard with ongoing series’ for me is that I often forget who characters are and what happened in previous books. From that perspective, the fact that the plot is so slow moving actually works in the books’ favor because I have a much easier time remember what has already happened since there isn’t too much for me to remember. That part aside, though, I also find it very easy to remember the different characters and their personalities which is impressive with a cast of eight main characters plus secondaries.
Overall, I heartily recommend this series. There’s part of me that might recommend waiting until all the books are written because each book ends with a cliffhanger, but another part feels like these books are too good so everyone should just read them now. I just want to point out real quick that as of today, the book has 113 ratings with only one two-star and no one-stars (of course, this is the day after its release, but still). THESE BOOKS ARE GOOD and I think they’d appeal to both girls and boys. There’s action and romance and a male narrator with some kick-a female characters as well. JUST EVERYONE READ THEM.
Overall Rating: 4
Language: Mild
Violence: Heavy
Smoking/Drinking: Moderate
Sexual Content: Moderate
Note: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.