Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this book.

Definitely an interesting read, started off strong but kind of dragged at a few points. I wasn't a huge fan of the main character but overall enjoyed the read.

In a world where literacy is the worst of sins and the gods send avenging archangels to punish those who disobey, a librarian and a sheltered daughter of a king struggle to find the truth about their world and society.

While a little brutal for my taste, this is a fascinating book. The worldbuilding is brilliant and the story is full of surprises. It took a while to get a grip on what was going on but I enjoyed the process. I loved watching the main character grow, learn and confront her own ideas and prejudice. Very thought-provoking.

This ends up being a fascinating tale about power, how people use it and the trades they make, and what you decide to do with your knowledge. Are some of the details of what happens a bit of a sketch more than fully thought out descriptions? At times, yes. Does a wandering librarian calling himself Ishmael end up being objectively fascinating, and a look into knowledge transmission? Yes! Does a girl coming into the truth of what her world is, and being opened to the possibility of more appeal? Yes? Then pick this up (ideally from a library, because principles), and enjoy a great read.

I am a huge fan of Tobias S. Buckell's writing and have recommended his short stories collection to friends and fellow readers. In a previous review of Buckell's work, I noted that he excels in short fiction writing because the form (in my opinion) is notoriously tricky to write. It was with great excitement and curiosity that I approached his longer work - the novel A Stranger in the Citadel.

Buckell chose to tell the story through Lilith, the youngest musketress of Ninetha. Her boundless curiosity leads her to save the librarian Ishmael from an immediate execution, thus leading them (and the readers) on a quest for knowledge, truth and discoveries they might not have expected.

A Stranger in the Citadel is a masterfully written and powerful work. It is a wondrous and compelling blend of an adventurous quest and a reflective, thought-provoking work. Everything about A Stranger in the Citadel (characters, plot, prose) is memorable. In less than 250 pages Buckell crafted complex and bewitching characters while simultaneously creating a rich, vivid and diverse world and backstory. His mastery of the art of writing short stories superbly translated to a longer form, giving the readers an enjoyable and reflective read.

It is hard for me to eloquently express how important and relevant the story (and the characters) of A Stranger in the Citadel are; especially at this time when books are being banned across the US (and I'm certain elsewhere in the world, although we don't get as much coverage about that ). Stories like this one encourage the readers to ask questions, to reflect on their preconceptions, on what they know and what they are taught (or not taught) and why are hugely important. Now, more than ever we need more books like this one.

I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to pick up A Stranger in the Citadel, even if the reason to pick the book up is to find out why the words "You shall not suffer a librarian to live." are on the cover of the book. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

"The gods say, "You shall not suffer a librarian to live." How can you not love that opening line? It's the well-crafted hook that pulls you into a searing, fierce, and uniquely imagined tale about Lilith, a young woman who lives in a society where books and reading are outlawed (on pain of death), where stories and knowledge are passed down through generations without the help of ink or paper, and where people's food and supplies come from a strange device called a "cornucopia". When Lilith meets Ishmael, a wandering librarian, her whole world is upended.

Buckell's world feels both unsettlingly familiar and disturbingly alien as we glimpse shadows of a lost history in snippets of story, myth, and place names. I loved every bit of this tale, and the revelations along the way that turns both Lilith's and the reader's understanding of her world and its history on its head. Here, old speculative fiction threads are woven into a new pattern and the end-result is a sharp and haunting tale of humanity's strengths and weaknesses, our brightest hopes and darkest fears.

Published by Tachyon Publications on October 17, 2023

A Stranger in the Citadel is set on a human world of the far future, one that still recalls legendary names like Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Some more recent legends have become gods: Washtun (the god of honesty and transparency, in whose honor cherry trees are planted); Elv (who is honored by music festivals and blue suede shoes). Much knowledge of the past has been lost, largely due to the destruction visited by the archangels.

The story begins within the walled city of Ninetha. The Lord Musketeer protects and rules the city with the help of his musketeers, although he is clearly protecting the interests of the affluent. His ancestors likely built the wall so that the blessings of the Cornucopia — a machine attributed to divinity that manufactures medicine and food and most other things people might want, apart from weapons— are kept from the peasants, who eat a bland daily diet called vittle.

The musketeers are purportedly the children of the Lord Musketeer, but they are raised and trained by a warrior named Kira who is also a religious zealot. The religion’s most sacred principle is that books are evil, that writing is sinful, that “thou shalt not suffer a librarian to live.” People believe their ancestors made a contract with the gods — renounce books and you will not go hungry.

A librarian named Ishmael makes his way from New Alexandria to Ninetha, carrying his library on his back, hoping to gain and spread knowledge. He is captured and is about to be killed when Lilith, the youngest muskatress, intervenes. Her desire for mercy is sacrilegious to Kira but Lilith knows a secret that even Kira doesn’t know — her father has a book.

Lilith’s knowledge eventually sparks a religious revolution that brings down her ruling family. Much of the novel consists of Lilith in flight, following Ishmael to the top of the world, pursued by Kira and later by a slow but relentless archangel. Lilith finds that other communities resent Ninetha for keeping the benefits of its Cornucopia for the upper class. One community has adopted a power-sharing structure that causes Lilith to question the privilege with which she was raised.

The story of the archangels is a bit muddy, as is the novel’s ending. Perhaps the archangels are robot travelers from space who have their own religion to spread. The archangel’s explanation of a human death ritual is a bit puzzling.

Lilith is the kind of young protagonist whose mind is open to discovery, perhaps making her appealing to fans of YA fiction. The ignorant book banners who make parts of America deplorable might have inspired the novel, but the lessons Kira learns about books were made in more compelling terms by Bradbury, to whom the librarian alludes. Despite its worthy but not quite successful attempt to be something more, A Stranger in the Citadel works well as an adventure story in which a religion of banned books happens to form a background.

RECOMMENDED

Very Fahrenheit 451 vibes.

I love the premise of this book, set in a post-Earth world where books are banned and the commandment is that librarians aren't allowed to live. However, some knowledge has survived through oral histories.

I liked the two main characters. They were interesting. One, a curious youngest child in a large family of siblings and the other a rogue librarian who gets caught with a book and is sentenced to death. There are several twists and turns throughout the book that are quite interesting to follow, and keep the pacing going fairly steadily, although, at times, it did drag a little.

What is frustrating is the lack of information about why the world is as it is. I guess this is deliberate, as the characters themselves do not know, but I felt that the worldbuilding could have been so much more. It felt too lacking in detail. I don't necessarily nerd to know the ins and outs of everything, but more detail would have been nice.

I received this advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. This was an interesting novel, and included some challenging perspectives regarding knowledge, reading, religion and government. However, I did not find it very interesting and engaging for me as the reader.

Many years after an apocalypse, populations of humans live in isolated towns that are surrounded by vast stretches of desert, making travel between almost impossible. Also, there is no communication between towns, with rumour and remnants of knowledge about other places being all everyone knows about other places.

People’s needs for food and very limited technology within the towns are met through gods-granted, centrally-located complicated machines called cornucopia, reminiscent of Star Trek replicators.

In the walled town of Ninetha where the story opens, the militaristic ruler and his children have ready access to the cornucopia; a small number of prominent families are below them in importance, with a large number of commoners, who are last to receive the machine's sustenance and gifts.

The ruler and his family have muskets and gunpowder, cleverly procured from the cornucopia. The youngest of the family, Lilith, and main character, lives a privileged life. She's trained in martial arts and surviving in the desert, by her father’s second-in-command, Kira, who is a true believer in the law that governs humanity: "Thou shall not suffer a librarian to live."

Very, very few in this world know how to read, as the gods outlawed reading. Any deviance from the gods’ rules means death.

Lilith is unaware of the frustrations of Nineth's commoners, and of her older siblings, till the arrival of a literate man carrying books. A librarian.

Needless to say, Ishmael's arrival sets off a series of violent events, as well as Lilith's frantic escape from Ninetha. This results in a breakdown of everything she knows about her family, her town, other settlements, her world, and reading, and forces her to see everything in a new light.

Lilith begins the story as privileged, self-centred, naive, and unquestioning in her own superiority. Over the course of her travels and discussions with Ishmael, she makes several rash judgments and mistakes, but thankfully grows tremendously by the end.

This was an interesting dystopian story, with its harsh wastelands, harsher laws, and quick violence. I had questions about the world, which, due to length, were not answered, though clearly the isolation and separation of various human towns was intentional after whatever terrible disasters occurred in the characters’ pasts. Which leads to the questions the author was posing about the value of literacy, information and knowledge, versus the dangers of rumours and superstitions. And the importance of curiosity and imagination, instead of blind obedience.

Though this was a standalone, I wanted to spend more time exploring this world with Lilith.

Thank you to Netgalley and tomTachyon Publications for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Sometimes you start book and you feel enthralled by the plot and the storytelling. It happened with this book, I was in love with this story since the moment Lilith sees her first book as we are introduced to this complex and intriguing world building.
There’s a very original magical system, strong characters and emotions, it’s one of those cases you would be happy if this was a series and you could learn more about this world.
Tobias S. Buckell can writes and I want to read some of the other series as I thoroughly enjoyed this story
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to Tachyon Publications for this digital copy, all opinions are mine

A Stranger in the Citadel is a SF/F novel by author Tobias S. Buckell. The novel was originally an Audible audiobook "original" in 2021 and is now being published in actual print (and ebook) in 2023 by Tachyon Publications, a publisher who tends to publish a lot of really interesting short novels from SF/F authors. It's a novel that Buckell notes was inspired by Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in that it features a world where literacy - reading and writing - is a heresy of the highest order and punishable by death. But unlike other novels I've read with similar concepts, where protagonists get introduced to reading and find it magical and seek to change the world, Buckell takes a different tack.

Instead we have a world where reading and writing genuinely is dangerous and the world without it - where stories are told and retold by griots and food is provided by magical cornucopias - is seemingly okay...until a "Librarian" arrives with a book and our protagonist, the Musketress (princess) Lilith tries to spare his life out of mercy. The resulting tale of revolution, of privilege and corruption and power, of love, friendship and human curiosity is fascinating and goes in paths you very much won't expect and is well well worth your time.

Trigger Warning: Sexual Abuse is referred to, although it's never seen on page, as a horror inflicted by one of the early antagonists. It shouldn't affect readers too much, but if it does, it's there.


Plot Summary:
Lilith is the youngest Musketress of Ninetha - the youngest daughter of Ninetha's ruler, the Lord Musketeer. It's a life full of hard training under the tutelage of her father's second in command, Kira, as the Lord Musketeer and Lilith's family are the guardians of the Cornucopia, the magical source of anything one seeks that was given to the people by the Gods. All the Gods ask for in return is that their commandments are obeyed, the most important of which is this: "You Shall Not Suffer a Librarian to Live."

Lilith has almost never seen a book and certainly does not know how to read or what a book might contain....but she has peaked into the hidden room in the Citadel that her siblings guard for her father, and there she knows lies the biggest heresy of all: A book hidden away. But the existence of the book is a strange curiosity she dares not ask about and she has no intention of trying to discover its secrets. Until one day, a Librarian is found entering the city and is taken to be killed and Lilith can't simply let him be murdered for something she doesn't quite understand...and Lilith's actions ignite a fire that will change all of Ninetha, and Lilith's life, forever....
A Stranger in the Citadel starts with a setup that the reader may find familiar and carry certain expectations. Lilith lives in a city where literacy is forbidden and reading is punishable by death, where the only book she has ever seen is the secret one her father has her siblings guard and that she knows basically nothing about. Her father is the King essentially of this city and basically rules over a magical source of endless food/resources/anything-else-people-need....which he controls in a way to keep people beholden to him, such that there is still poverty and hunger and nobles who want more. Lilith's tutor and her father's second in command Kira is a commoner who is a devout believer in the god's rules and does not countenance heresy of any kind. Lilith is compassionate and caring and, while she's devoted to her training under Kira and is skilled with her musket, she is privileged enough not to wonder whether any of this might be wrong - and she's even privileged from the perspective of her siblings, who have learned the hard way that things aren't quite as idyllic as they seem.

In this type of story, usually what you'd expect to happen, especially when a man carrying books appears in the first few pages, is for Lilith to secretly sneak time with the Librarian, learn the joys of reading and either escape or lead a revolution with the aid of what she learns from literacy. This is...not that book. Lilith is caring and curious but she is a believer in the gods - who have provided the Cornucopia - and is not one to immediately turn away from what she knows and believes...even when things turn to an utter disaster and she finds herself on the run with the Librarian Ishmael. Similarly, the story seems like it's some kind of SciFi future of our world...and it is, but not quite in the way the reader, or one of the characters, would have ever expected. And while the story does to a certain extent tell a tale dealing with how valuable it is to know how to read and write, the story also notes how society is able to function through griots and repeated recollections to keep stories remembered throughout history.

What we have here instead of the usual is a story of corruption and power and abuse of that power, and of the people rising up upon discovering a betrayal by the one who mistreated them. It's a story of how people who are corrupt in one way may be abusive in even more horrifying ones and how even a revolution that displaces those people may not necessarily result in a better place. It's also a story about how hard it is to change such things, and how people can continue to believe in certain ideas and things well past them remembering where those things came from or if they still matter. And it's a journey of Lilith growing up and being shocked out of her privilege until she's ready to chart a new path, one which she's no longer naive enough to get killed over.

It's pretty good and surprising and not too long, so well worth your time now that it's in ebook format in other words. Recommended.

The idea of books and literacy being a crime and a sin was enough to intrigue me to request this story.

The gods say, “You shall not suffer a librarian to live.” Then a librarian falls into Lilith‘s city, upending all she knows of her family, the gods, & her world.

And this absolutely blew me away. After a bit of a slow start, we get some expansive world building without it being overwhelming. A fascinating character arc for a proactive young lady. Action, excitement, but also deep discussions on literacy and community and the responsibility of those in power.

Lilith starts out as privileged, opinionated, stubborn, and harsh. Which is totally understandable given her background. And the journey she undergoes is fascinating to read. Her developing relationships, paired with her growing curiosity about the world beyond her walled city were so satisfying to read.

While I feel like there was enough information about the world that I didn't feel totally lost in the winds, I ended the story with so many questions about how their world got to where it is in this story. I just found myself wanting more and more.

And despite the obvious hook for the sequel, the ending completely satisfied me on the story. I am eagerly awaiting a second book, and I also intend to look out for more of Buckell's work.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the opportunity to review this ARC.

I wanted to read A Stranger in the Citadel due to it’s tagline you shall not suffer a Librarian to live which is clearly the point and does the job. This drew me in. I expected a novel about forbidden knowledge and book burning but I got so much more. I loved the world created in the book, a place where people get everything, they need from something called the cornucopia, a device given to them by gods. There’s a small price to pay – they must abandon knowledge and the pursuit of it. Humans are naturally curious, so you know things are not going to end well when a traveller wanders into the city with a book. This is a well-written and engaging read.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Tachyon Publishing for an advanced copy of this science fiction/fantasy/possible future of Florida novel about the fear that people have for ideas contrary to their own and how much easier it is to kill the messenger than have to deal with questions that make one uncomfortable, even if society falls because of it.

One gets jaded in the modern age thinking that fights won are fights that are never going to happen again. People don't understand ignorance, and how the ignorant can always be called on to refight battles over and over again. Give them the rallying cry of patriotism, nostalgia, religion, or that old standby common sense, and ignorant people will take up the banner, call in bomb threats, let children die, and set a nation back 200 years, cause well, they don't know better. And fear. Never forget the fear. The fear of change, the fear of being treated the way they have treated others, women, minorities, the different. Not realizing that the people they support will watch them die from high towers, and complain about the smell of burning corpses. Libraries are the latest in a long war against tyranny, religious freedom for some, even sexuality. A book don't judge. I book only teaches, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, sometimes inciting violence, sometimes insightful for the soul. But that is what makes a book dangerous to people. It might make one question. It might make one learn. Even a book about a formula to keep power is dangerous, because of what it contains, and what it shares. And sometimes even the book burners lose control of their followers, and chaos can follow. A Stranger in the Citadel by Tobias Buckell is a novel about a possible future, maybe not that far away where books are burned, readers and librarians are considered enemies of the status quo, and innocent questions can lead to massive consequences.

Lilith is the youngest daughter of the leader of Ninetha, a citadel town in the middle of vast wastes and also a musketeers guardian of the Cornucopia that provides all that the people need. Well those closest in power at least. Walking with her guards and mentor Kira, Lilith comes across a group of herders dragging a man in chains. As no visitors have come to the city in a generation, Lilith is intrigued, and made even more so, when it is found the man has a book. Books are forbidden, as is the ability to read, the material to be burned, and those who own it are to be killed. Lilith is able to save the man, who turns out to be a librarian, whose body is crisscrossed with tattoos of strange marks and pictures, but in saving him has given him an even worse fate. Starving to death in the dungeons of the Citadel. Lilith takes an interest in the man, who asks to be called Ishmael, who tells her of a world she has no idea about. But in learning about the world outside, Lilith has put her own world at risk.

A book that has a lot of plot and a lot of ideas, enough for a trilogy or two, but all told in a very slim story, that while starting a little slow, hits hard and keeps going. While reminiscent of both Fahrenheit 451 and also A Canticle for Leibowitz, this book is its own creature, a shout out to the power of books, the power given them, and the fear that people have, and will use to keep society in line. The world is interesting, sort of a view of tech bros enjoying great technology, the Cornucopia that gives food, medicine, and more, while keeping others in line and ignorant is very topical, and should serve as a warning. The writing is very good, with subtle, and overt hints to what is going, on, and a revel between Lilith and her mentor that is some very powerful writing. Again for such a small book, it really is hard to believe all that Buckell accomplishes.

A really good science fantasy story drawing greatly on events and ideas of right now. This is the first book that I have read by Tobias Buckell but I want to read more. Not many writers are brave enough to go for it in writing, and I am quite impressed by that. A book that makes one think, and angry, and sad, and a whole lot more.

A great number of reviews of Tobias Buckell's latest book, A STRANGER IN THE CITADEL, start out with the following tag line, the one that is meant to draw the reader in:

“You shall not suffer a librarian to live.”

I will admit that it drew me in. Forbidden knowledge, citadels, book banning and burning - I mean, it sure reads like a summary of modern day life, doesn't it? But as I said, the line is meant to draw in the reader, for the book is about much more than that and really something other than that. Of course it is.

Lilith lives in the walled city of Ninetha. She is a musketress of the citadel, and she and her 12 siblings are charged with protection of the city. The people of Ninetha are provided for by the cornucopia, a device left to them by the gods who demand that in exchange for the cornucopia the people abandon knowledge and the pursuit of it. Thus, books are banned, and anyone who is in possession of a book is condemned to die. Life is simple under this rule, and things are peaceful - until a traveler from outside the city wanders in with a book in his possession. Lilith's trainer, Kira, wants the "librarian" put to death on the spot. Lilith, being curious by nature, wants to learn more about the man. Kira tries to dissuade Lilith, but as Lilith's father is the leader of the city and she is in line for his position (should it ever get to that - she is the youngest of the 13), she pulls rank and has the man imprisoned instead.

I've mentioned that Lilith is curious. She is too curious for her own good, as it turns out. She wonders what her other siblings are guarding in a room deep within the citadel, and manages to discover that they are guarding, of all things, a book. She begins to question how things are being done by her father, and what other lies he might be keeping from her. Lilith makes the mistake of confiding in Kira about the book. That single act sets in motion the rest of the story, as the city descends into chaos when the discovery is made public. And while
her siblings had plans for this eventuality, and indeed saw it coming sooner or later, things did not go as planned, and Lilith's life was forever changed. Lilith vows to assemble an army and take her city back, but that is a daunting task.

The rest of the novel, then, is spent outside the city, as Lilith and librarian (whose name is Ishmael, we come to learn), wander from town to town, looking for help and shelter, and trying to figure out where to go next. There was much talk of going to New Alexandria - and this is one of the reader's hints that this world is not all as it appears to be. As the novel unfolds, Ishmael and Lilith discover much, much more about the truth of their land, and why they're in the situation they are.

The novel starts out as a fantasy, with a gift given by the gods providing for the people of the land, but as it progresses we learn that it really isn't a fantasy. There is no magic, and there is rudimentary science, but the big reveal of the novel makes me feel like this is a small part of a much bigger story, a story that I'd really be interested in reading. A STRANGER IN THE CITADEL can be read as YA, and that wouldn't be incorrect, given the protagonist and how she and the story progress. But it's clear there's much more to tell, and that's the story I want to read. Maybe Buckell didn't want or intend to tell that other story, but that story is the one that sets the table for this one, which in my mind is a story within the story, and I want that larger story.

That's not to say that the book wasn't enjoyable. It certainly was. The characters are terrific, the situation reminds the reader of what we are living through today, and family, whether by biology or choice, plays a large part. And really, who doesn't love a story about forbidden knowledge?

This was an intriguing idea, but it had a couple of aspects that just didn't work for me.

First, the world seems familiar (walled city in the wastelands with corrupt aristocracy) but is actually deeply weird, to the point that the author just has to explain stuff instead of having it come out as part of the story. Even with the explanation, there is far too much left as a mystery by the end of the book.

Second, I'm not fond of "running away" as a plot. There are a bunch of constrained choices or maybe no choice at all, so the characters don't have consequential decisions or agency. That means I'm not invested in what they are doing. Yes, there is there is interesting character development, but the constrained choices make me hyper aware of The Hand Of The Author putting those characters in those situations.

3.5 stars

I have to admit that in the beginning I seriously thought about dropping this one because even if the ideas were intriguing, the writing was not really the right fit for me (and it reminded me a lot of The Four Profound Weaves that was a book that I highly enjoyed on a purely logical level, but that I do not enjoy on a personal level if this makes sense. And not because these books are quite alike, but for the vibes they both gave me) and the development seemed something highly predictable. And up to a point, all these things are true, but I am glad I kept reading, because even if this book is not the proper fit for me, and I didn't enjoy it as much as I was hoping, it was an interesting and highly original reading.
My main problem is that I am a character-driven reader, and I wasn't really invested in any of the characters. Sure, they were complex and fascinating, it's not that they are plain or bidimensional, not at all, but I couldn't really feel for them, and this hindered my enjoyment on a personal level. But the world-building and the plot are really good!
The world-building is original and fascinating, it's not a world in which I would love to live, that's for sure, I mean "You shall not suffer the librarian to live" sounds pretty ominous right?? But it is fascinating and original.
And the plot goes some unexpected ways, and I really appreciated it!

Add another one to the 'I wanted to like this so much' shelf, I guess? Nice cover, interesting premise but didn't quite grab me.

A Stranger in the Citadel is set in a post-apocalyptic world where literacy is banned and, in the city where our protagonist lives, the possession of books is a capital offence - Lilith is one of a bunch of children brought up by their father, the ruler of the city, to protect it (and also compete to succeed him). The city has a secret though, that there's a heavily-guarded book guarded by her siblings even as they put to death anyone else who owns one. This is also a very hierarchical set-up, with a piece of machinery at its heart that can create anything but whose use is tightly constrained, so that the powerful get everything they want and the less powerful get the scraps.

Into Lilith's settled life comes a man in possession of books and while others want to kill him straight away, Lilith argues that he should be given a trial before he's executed. It's as he's awaiting trial that her world starts to collapse, as she starts to query why she's accompanied everywhere even though she's been highly trained to defend the city and the hypocrisies at the heart of the set-up she's never questioned before. Freeing the Librarian, Lilith goes on the run, in search of the other cities she's heard about in stories.

The world building is the best part of this book, though some of it can be a bit heavy-handed in terms of symbolism. Unfortunately, the characterisation just doesn't work as well and I didn't get the feeling I knew anything about the protagonists beyond the bare bones. It takes a long time for anything to really happen and then it still feels a bit oddly-paced. I ended up skimming the last third, I think, and that's never a good sign. Oh well.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, via Netgalley. This is my honest review of the book in question.

In a world where reading is forbidden, a librarian is a hunted man. Ok, so far, so good. But then we add in a very stereotypically sassy teen from the ruling family, stereotypically corrupt rulers, stereotypically fierce warriors, and a bunch of jokes so bad that they ruin the mood of the entire book, and you get this. It's a bit of a mess, really, Is it a serious SFF novel? The aforementioned terrible jokes--through which we're supposed to understand that the earth of the novel is the future of our own earth (actually, the earth of the novel is a part of our earth that broke away or blew up or something and is now a flat chunk of land orbiting what's left of earth. There's a pointless series of flat earth jokes through the whole book. Like I said, messy.)--make it feel silly, like a Pratchett novel without the cleverness. Is it a parable about literacy? Maybe? The people who can and do read are reading books of our earth--Bradbury, Dumas--in an overt gesture from the author that he's writing about the same things that they did, or is borrowing from them. About tech? Maybe? There's a killer robot from outer space. About politics and war? Maybe? There's a lot of "i must kill you" that becomes "I could never kill you" in just moments, not convincingly written. The characters aren't particularly interesting or memorable, and I got really tired of the teen protagonist swearing she'd do one thing and then abandoning it and then swearing to do another thing and abandoning it, so....it was tiresome reading. Thanks to this review, you don't need to do it!

A post-apocalyptic world where reading and writing is considered a sin? Consider me hooked. This however is very different to the famous book about burning books: Fahrenheit 451. Still, the topic of literacy and its usefulness is very present.

I will start with the thing that I did not like: it is too YA. This topic and specially the world the author created is incredibly complex and would benefit with a more adult story. I understand the need to bring those issues to younger audiences, for sure. But, like I said, I would have enjoyed the story were it much more adult.

This other point is a yes and no. The book is divided in 3 chapters and I personally need more, but I understand the reason behind it, so I did not take that into account. However, this is important for what I'll talk about in this point. Along the whole book there are several conversations about literacy, writing and reading and whether it is essential or useful for humanity. But it is in the second chapter that this takes too much protagonism, in my opinion. It almost feels like a Plato book, with conversations between people about a philosophical question. I understand it and I liked it, but I was more invested in the world and the action that in those conversations. This for me slowed the story a bit.

The best and strongest thing about this book is the world building. There are so many things that I would have loved to explore and learn… I mean, I finished the book with a thousand questions about how does it all work. Did humanity go to another planet or is it the paradise? Do even those gods exist? What was that humanity did for it to go so wrong? Why is writing and reading a sin? And so on. Like I cannot stop thinking about all this and how does it work and what about other cities and what about so many things. This part was a 10 for me, and I would definitely read more books set in this world.

Overall, it felt to YA for what the world building could have done. It's a good read, it's interesting, and it makes you question a lot of topics. Perfect for readers who want something to think about after finishing the book.

-Ele