Such a great premise, and engaging worldbuilding! Great start to a series, and I'll definitely pick up more in the series or by this author.

DNF at page 177

I started this book at 3 AM after finishing a 5-star book before it, and it immediately engrossed me and I was loving the hell vs. heaven setting. However, the more I got into this book, the harder it got to pick up, and about half way through I just realized I couldn't care less about the characters or the action. Seeing that it's a three book series was another let down for me because I couldn't bring myself to care about what's happening in this installment, let alone where the next two will be headed.

cool concept, but overwritten and difficult pacing.

I loved this book! Living characters, battles between heaven and earth (with no clear "right" side), tropes and aversions and lampshades galore. Hackwith builds the sort of library every librarian secretly wishes for, and stocks it with all our favorite character types. I kept thinking, oh, this book is written for Me Personally. Leaving this review (a year after I read it and uhhhh four years after I downloaded it, sorry) makes me want to go reread it. It's one of the ones that I downloaded and lost the ARC for, then ended up purchasing when it was published because it was so very My Brand. Time to go devour this series again, I think.

What a fun ride through the underworld! It was smart and fun and left me thinking of it at random moments.

Staff member raved about this book so I had to read it myself. Hell has a library for all the unwritten books to keep them safe and to not let them escape. Claire has an unwritten character escape and takes the new kid, Leto, to return him back into his book. Hero is found talking his author into finishing her book. After his retrieval they all return to the library. The muse, Brevity is left in charge of the library when it appears a more powerful book has escaped. Interesting twists on heave and he’ll.
Goodreads

As a writer, I'm a sucker for stories about stories and the people who write them. This one didn't disappoint. Hackwith weaves some interesting ideas about what happens to unwritten stories inbetween myths and legends to created a diverting tale. While there wasn't as much character development as I would have liked, and there was more token elements than I care for, the overall story was good and solid enough that I was able to enjoy it with minimal "writer" distractions (diction, structure, cliches, etc). While not one that will ever be a classic, it was a fun read and I'll likely pick up the next installment.

This book took me a while to read and get into. The main character was hard to like in the beginning but she definitely grew as the book progressed. I might try to read the second one to see how she changed.

This is a book for book lovers (at least the ones that like to read books ABOUT books. The Library of the Unwritten is an interesting examination of libraries and the stories that they hold, only in this book the library is in Hell and it contains every book that can, will, and may be written which is a very interesting premise. Especially when you add in the fact that the books can come alive under certain circumstances.

I liked the characters (be they human, demon, or book character come alive.) The plot of the story was interesting and I liked how, even though I could easily see myself finding the sequel/sequels down the road, that this book felt like a pretty complete story in and of itself.

Overall, I really liked this book and would recommend it to anyone bookworm who likes bookish books.

I tried, but could not get into this book. The characters were a little flat and the storyline was interesting, but the attempt wasn't quite up to the job.

The Library of the Unwritten follows Claire (Hell's Librarian), Brevity (Clair's assistant), Leto (a demon), and Rami (a fallen angel looking for forgiveness) as they search for the missing pages of the Devil's Bible. This book is equal parts beautiful and hilarious. The way that this book was written, from the characters to the storytelling, is captivating. This is not cookie cutter fantasy. It reads different than any other fantasy book that I have picked up.

There are parts of the world building that get a little hard to follow, and having the story told from four perspectives makes it a little confusing. However, overall this was a fantastic book and I am sincerely looking forward to reading the next one.

This was good but didn’t necessarily grab me. I’m glad I read it and have a few library patrons in mind to recommend it to. I will purchase the title for my library.

Others LOVED this, but I DNF'd it. For me it suffered in comparison to Genevieve Cogman's <i>The Invisible Library</i> series. I'm sorry I couldn't get into it, and will probably revisit it at some point to see if it was just my mood rather than the book's actual merits.

Received a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A book about Hell’s library and it’s librarian?! What’s not to love?! I cannot wait for the next book in this series! An original concept and well written.

An interesting premise written in an engaging style. This is a good read for horror/fantasy lovers. It is a good addition to most general library collections.

If you read Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair and thought, “you know what would make this better? If it was about a librarian in hell,” this is the book for you. Incredibly clever, imaginative, and a book-lover’s dream.

This was the moment I fell for our protagonist: “Claire found herself well suited for damnation.” Claire has been running the Unwritten Wing of Hell’s Library for 30 years when our story begins. When part of Lucifer’s Codex randomly appears, it launches a quest for both hell’s librarian and heaven’s angels. Claire has a ragtag band of her assistant (a former muse), a recently escaped character named Hero who cannot presently be returned to his book, a demon who is actually human, and a demon who is a legit demon. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the many adventures that befell them and could not wait to see who would get the Codex first and whether betrayal was afoot. Demons aren’t known for being trustworthy after all. While muse Brevity’s character felt underwritten to me, I fell hard for Leto, Hero, and even fallen angel Ramiel. We get to question the constructs around good and evil, which always interests me. The story ends on an intriguing note and I’m interested in seeing where the series develops from here.

As much as I enjoyed this, I do have some questions around Claire’s characterization. She is a person of color but this was not revealed until very late in the book: “brown face” (page 255), “usual clay complexion” (page 263). Skin color or ethnicity is made clear for almost every other character early on in the book, including Brevity’s blue skin. But we never get much of a description of Claire, beyond the fact that she has braids. (What kind of braids? I don’t know. We’re never told.) The first clue that Claire might be a person of color appeared on page 219 when Claire confronts Beatrice, a character from one of Claire’s unwritten books: “When I dreamed up your story, you weren’t the woman I wanted to love; you were the woman I wanted to be.” Beatrice was described as having “deep brown skin.” That was the moment when I paged back to the beginning of the story to see if I’d missed this important detail about Claire but I didn’t find anything and there was no confirmation that Claire had brown skin until page 255. This is written by a white author. I’m hard-pressed to understand why it wouldn’t be more clear the protagonist is a person of color and also what their race or ethnicity actually is. It is entirely possible I missed this detail in spite of double checking but it also shouldn’t be hard to find. Race and ethnicity isn’t a detail that you can just check off a box. It should inform who Claire is, even in a fantasy novel. (I’m a white woman so I’ll defer to POC readers in terms of representation but I did want to point it out.) While representation in terms of race left me with questions, this is a very LGBTQ-friendly book with a great found family element.

CW: anxiety, on-page panic attacks, violence, battle scenes, murder in self-defense, attempted murder, past murder, secondary character sacrifices themselves for the greater good ([they are resurrected), death of fictional characters, past bullying (including Leto recalling telling a friend to go ahead and die and [that friend died by suicide), past suicide, alcohol, the line “sacrificing me to the natives” which I did not think was in use anymore (declared while in Valhalla), ableist language

A wonderful series starter with such potential. Books about libraries and librarians are always a win.

I like the premise but couldn't get past the first few chapters. It was confusing, with some unnecessary cliches and I just wasn't engaged.

There is something about a story in which a library is one of the settings. It doesn't matter if the library is a fantasy or really exists, the library establishes the tone of the story, one in which the love of possibility and knowledge, as well as a reverence for the written word, are key. A. J. Hackwith puts this auto-generated tone to good use in her devilishly good novel, The Library of the Unwritten.

There is so much to love within the pages of The Library of the Unwritten. Claire is a great heroine. Determined, unafraid, erudite, and exacting, she is exactly what you would expect of a librarian. Except, she is not all rule-following and sternness. As you discover more about her and her past, it makes those moments when she does break the rules more powerful and impactful.

I also love Ms. Hackwith's clever approach to the afterlife. In her world, there is no such thing as one Hell and one Heaven. Rather, one goes to the afterlife of his or her religious belief, whether it is ancient Egypt, Buddhist, or Christian. This inclusion is satisfying on many levels, one of which is the fact it is a harmonious approach to the many belief systems that exist around the world. Instead of drawing a line in the proverbial sand that there is only one afterlife option, Ms. Hackwith includes them all to emphasize the point that anything is possible.

As much as I enjoyed The Library of the Unwritten, it is not without its issues. For one, there are times in which the plot becomes a little too convenient to be believable. The identity of one particular character, while interesting and a nice way to tie Claire's past to her present, does not appear to be necessary to the overall story. There are other instances of situations resolving themselves a little too easily. In addition, some of the imagery is a little clunky.

Those issues are minor, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed The Library of the Unwritten. I am eager to see where Ms. Hackwith takes the story next. In particular, I hope we get to know more of Claire's backstory. I would also love to learn how people become librarians in Hell and how Hell actually works since it appears a lot more complicated than one might think. One thing is for sure, the sequel should have more of the fantastic character interaction and Claire's prickly personality to entertain us.

DNF @50

The premise of this very similar to Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series, and I prefer that one. Had I not read that, I might have been more impressed by this one. That said, I do think this has a slot in the market for readers who prefer less romance.

If there exists a Library whose holdings include every single story not yet written, where would such a Library exist? In A. J. Hackwirth's charming and imaginative Fantasy, THE LIBRARY OF THE UNWRITTEN , the eponymous location is found, of all places, in Hell, staffed not by demons, but by a consecutive series of dedicated Human Librarians. Librarians everywhere are a Special Category, and the Librarians of the Unwritten are no exception.