The Book That Broke the World was VERY high on my most anticipated sequels list for 2024 and I’m happy to say that I enjoyed it! It didn’t quite have the same mind blowing impact the first book did, but I suspect that’s because I knew what to expect going into this one. The first book had so many wonderful twists and character introductions that I was in a constant state of wonder. This time around, the world was more familiar though not without exciting reveals.
Rather than jumping right back into the tale of Livira and Evar, we are introduced to two new characters. Celcha and Hellet are ganar slaves, working out in the Dust digging through old ruins for materials that can be sent back to the city. When they uncover a buried room full of books and claim they can recreate the order in which they were originally shelved, the two are taken to the Library and put to work opening the doors that only willing ganar hands can open. The ganar people are described as small golden-furred individuals who came down from one of the moons and need a tremendous amount of sleep, otherwise they die. For some reason I’m picturing them as pink fairy armadillos.
Fortunately, despite the introduction to our new characters, we soon return to the stories I’m most compelled by - those of Livira and Evar and the rest of their companions. It’s difficult to get into too many details because of the sheer number of spoilers I would have to deftly avoid. Let’s just say there are a few different plot lines following Livira and Malar, Evar and his siblings, and Arpix and the group of people who escaped the Library with him at the end of The Book That Wouldn't' Burn. Thanks to the nature of the library and the Exchange, not all of them are in the same time and place and much of the story is really leading up to a convergence of these disparate groups AND Celcha and Hellet.
This was a great installment to the series, but I do think it suffered from middle book syndrome just a bit. It definitely felt like it was setting events up for the grand finale of the trilogy, which I do think is going to be pretty epic since our characters have picked their sides in the age-old disagreement between the founders of the Library. Overall, this was an enjoyable read that kept me thoroughly engaged, with just a dash of confusion because quite frankly this was denser than expected and the multiple ‘timelines’ got a bit overwhelming (especially for chill vacation reading).

As long time readers know, I've always been a fan of Mark Lawrence. He's got a knack for writing a richly imagined, immersive universe. For making the stage feel like a real, lived in place. And for putting characters on it who you can feel. Who are working on their own wants and needs, not just marching through the narrative motions. A knack for stories that ask big questions, and challenge the reader to go on the journey to, if not find the answer, at least find an answer. Which brings us to The Book That Broke The World.
In part, this is a book about The Library. Not a library, but the library. It squats on its world, pulling in knowledge and focus like a gravity well. It's a monstrous thing, a collection of more knowledge than anyone can bear. Constructed over aeons, pulling in different peoples, different species, from all across its geography. The library squats within a mountain, and plumbs its depths. And while its physically imposing, its cultural weight is larger. Wars are fought for the knowledge of the library. People broken and forced out of the city. Which changes hands again, and again, and again. On a long enough timeline, the library draws everything to it, and then sets it aflame. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is open to debate. But the library itself has a warm, cosy, only slightly horrifying feel to it. As people step between different rooms, which can be feet or miles across. As they uncover secret knowledge, and terrifying defence mechanisms, those people step deeper into the space which is at once confined and limitless, chambers going ever deeper into the bedrock, each turn and each open door promising more understanding, greater knowledge. Greater power. And that's a promise which in this world carries costs. The story isn't afraid to explore those, looking at the systemic oppression enacted by those in control, at one time or another. At the efforts to make changes, gradual or otherwise, violent or otherwise. It's a text that gives us a world about which it often seems fiercely angry, a world where knowledge is available if you're willing to kill for it, where keeping people down is a survival strategy and also inevitably ends in blood and fire. From the dark tunnels of mines worked by slaves, pulling out layers of shattered civilisations, to iron shelves in the library, torn apart by murderous automatons, there's layer after layer of history, of politics of compromise of blood. This is a world in thrall to its past, unwilling or unable to walk away from it. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is one of the questions this book is asking, as it shows you the consequences of both knowledge and ignorance (and perhaps, quietly, understanding).

We get to see some of our friends from the previous book once again. Livira and Evar are back, each one looking for the other, in their own way. Something Lawrence does well is show us characters changing, not just telling us about it. So we can see Livira, marked by her actions in the previous story, trying to find a way home, find a way back to Evar, to hold tight to a connection that might slip away forever. Whether she's willing to bear the costs of doing that is uncertain. But like Evar, she finds her family in those around her, and you can feel her becoming something more by osmosis. Evar, of course, has his own family, from hardened killers to schemers and back around again, victims of ancient trauma that they struggle with every day. He's a person willing to guide and be guided, growing from a lost boy into a leader, but still holding to curiosity, to vulnerability, to a quiet hurt that draws sympathy. They're both delightful in their empathy for others and fierce love for each other, and sympathetic in their struggle against their environment, their circumstances, and their struggle against antagonists that include malevolent ghosts, automatons, and, of course, other people. But this book also gives us a breath of fresh air in Celcha, someone brought up as a slave, mining knowledge, crushed into despair that hides a lively intelligence, and a strength of feeling likely to shatter worlds. Her journey, along with her brother, is a searingly painful one with flashes of joy, of understanding and belonging - and it's also a story of suffering, of the conflict between becoming what you hate and fighting back against it. Celcha is fiery, unyielding, thoughtful, and every page she's on is better for it.

The story. Well. No spoilers. But this is Lawrence at his best. Weaving strands of narrative across different moments of time and space, across multiple books, setting up convergences, letting people make choices that move them toward fraught, occasionally bloody conclusions. There's more action here than you can shake a stick at, and a slyly leering horror, and on the other side, there's the best of people, coming together to try to make something better. And, of course, the big questions - like how much knowledge is enough, how much is too much, is there such a thing, and should we let other people decide that for us, even if they look like they know what they're doing? It's a story that wants to give the reader room to think, while pacing the story so that you have to run to keep up at the same time. This is smart, wonderfully written fantasy that asks big questions about the kind of world we want, and about ourselves. It's also bloody good fun. So as ever, I thoroughly recommend it - though you could stand to read the first book in the series beforehand. Anyway, absolutely brilliant book, go, read.

I received an electronic ARC from Berkley Publishing Group through NetGalley.
The second book in this trilogy pulls readers back into the world created by Lawrence. We meet another species held in slavery and watch as two new characters escape the pit and enter the library world. The book also begins with various characters surviving in the Dust. Time is fluid as they exit and enter the Library through the Exchange but some "power" is working to move them all to the same time period to face each other and themselves. Each chapter is told from a different character's POV, and it can be frustrating to figure out where they are in time and connection to the rest of those in the story. The book bogs down in the middle section with more details than needed to move the story forward. However, once this information is shared, the story moves forward and readers see how the journeys have all led to this one time and one meeting in the Mechanism to learn of the two paths forward. I appreciate Yute offering a third option and speaking up. Yes, he has made mistakes in the past but seems to be working toward a compromise between the two extremes presented. By ending the story with characters choosing which door to go through, Lawrence sets up the conflicts and continued storylines ato wrap the trilogy in the next book.
Well worth the time to read this book and looking forward to the conclusion to come.

I can never quite get my head around Mark Lawrence's Library Trilogy. It often leaves me bewildered because I'm not sure how much or little I am enjoying it. On one hand I have so many things that I just don't care for, but on the other hand it absolutely keeps drawing me in, demanding my attention, and leaves me hungry for more. I don't think I've ever had a series make me feel so conflict with critical whiplash!

The Book That Broke the World, like its predecessor, really works when it is focusing on its two main strengths. The first of these is the emotional core of the books. The relationship between Livira and Evar ground the a story that is often thrust into a multiversal, time-jumping fantasy-fest. Livira and Evar are the Lyra and Will (of the His Dark Materials trilogy) of the twenty-first century. They are two young people thrust across space and time, and yet have developed this quite beautiful relationship despite the warring librarians, giant killing insects, magical cats, and more. The second strength is, of course, the mythical Library itself. What Lawrence has created here is truly awe-inspiring and I continue finding myself wanting to further explore the library and the mysteries of humanity it contains. The fraternal war between two of the founders of the library, and their contradictory philosophies, is an excellent par-example of how to build conflict, history, and thematic heft to a fantasy series this grandiose and epic.

I think where I keep being slightly let down by this series is that Lawrence has struggled to really find a compelling narrative to insert in his magical knack for worldbuilding. These problems started to emerge for me in the last 1/3 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn, but they come to the foreground here. This book suffers a bit from "MIddle Book Syndrome", and there are large swaths of the plot where things are happening, but nothing is HAPPENING. We will get a chapter where the characters are running from an insect army...and then two chapters later we get another extended sequence of them running from...gigantic spiders. If you like a lot of action sequences in your fantasy books, you'll be completely gripped by this sequel. However, I got bored with endless monotony of characters not really going anywhere - in terms of the plot or their own character arcs. By the end of the book I'm not sure what was actually accomplished here that couldn't have been condensed into a few chapters. The worldbuilding is great, but the Lawrene cannot seem to fully inhabit that world with a strongly paced story.

I should also point out that if the Library was your favorite thing about the first book, the characters spend very little time in the Library in this book.

Having said that, the plot in The Book That Broke the World isn't all bad. We do get a bit more info about the Library, how it operates, its history, and its purpose, and when Lawrence is focusing on the mythology of his worldbuilding, the story really soars. We also get introduced to a new POV character, Celcha, whose story reveals some things about the larger world that we hasn't really been exposed to in the past, except in some passing comments or asides. I really liked Celcha as a character, and it was fascinating seeing her go through much of the same journey as Livira did in the first book. We get to see the similarities and differences in their journeys, revealing many of the biases and structural inequalities inherent in this world (or worlds, I guess?). The ways in which Celcha's story arc crashes into the main storyline of the story is simultaneously tragic and hopeful (if all of those things can actually exist at the same time). Some of it is also a bit unexpected, but eagle-eyed readers will probably pick up on the connections quite early since Lawrence returns to the same toolbox he used for the first box (not unlike the way in which the tv show Westworld used the same tricks in its second season, to diminished effect).

Lawrence also does some really interesting things with POV in this book, especially as the number of different species and cultures come into direct contact with one another. Lawrence explores cultural biases, stereotypes, and judgements with sometimes subtle and other times quite exaggerated thoughts, feelings, and actions of his POV characters. We get to see how each of these characters views the others initially, and how those walls can come crumbling down as they get to know the others as people, and not another humanoid species. There is one inter-species romance that I didn't quite buy into, but overall the way that Lawrence is able to embody different characteres and their inherent biases so fully was refreshing and insightful into the psyche of this characters.

Even days after finishing this book I still don't know how much or little I liked this book. At first I wanted to give it a three star rating, but I've settled on four stars just because Lawrence has this way to drill into my brain with his core characters and intricate worldbuilding. I'm sure as I continue to ruminate on the book that star rating will change, which ultimately exposes the futility and arbitrariness of the star rating system anyways. If you liked Book 1, give this one a shot. Some people will really like it, others will find it to be too boring or slow. I'm sure the reviews will end up being mixed and conflicted, just like my own conflicted thoughts here.

Concluding Thoughts: Mark Lawrence returns to the Library, the mythical and magical place that contains all of the world's knowledge. Lawrence's worldbuilding remains immaculate, and the Library continues to have many mysteries to solves and layers to peel back. Lawrence's characters also continue to be strong, especially the core relationship between Livira and Evar, and Lawrence's command of his POV characters is masterful. However, this sequel let me down a bit because the plot moves so slowly, nothing really happens, and we spend too much time away from the Library that initially hooked me in. This is a mixed-bag of a sequel that I didn't like a lot of, yet kept pulling me back in for more.

Let me be clear - I absolutely loved The Book That Wouldn't Burn. I gave it 5 stars. So I do not understand whatsoever why I couldn't get past the first 100 pages of the sequel. Nothing was happening! I didn't care about the new characters or have a clue about their motivations, and all the old characters were doing was running the entire time with nothing new. I'm very disappointed. I still love Mark Lawrence's writing, and I might go back and finish it. Maybe I wasn't in the right headspace, I don't know. I hope other readers love it.

Mark Lawrence delivers a satisfying second entry to his new trilogy that continues the stories of Evar Eventari, Livira Page, and the most over-the-top library in any universe you care to name. While things continue to heat up in the metaphysical (?) fight over the library and what it means for reality and those who use it, Evar is trying to survive after being driven out of the library by a new enemy and Livira is... well she's busy trying to become corporeal again (among other pressing issues).

Returning readers to the series will be happy to see that there are no quality drops here, while new readers will take one look at the synopsis and hopefully immediately pick up the first entry.

Mark Lawrence has done it again! What a fantastic second book to this new trilogy. Not only do I love how Mark starts the story (with a synopsis of what happened in the last book), but I adore his world building. Though a little confusing at times, everything makes sense by the end. We see a few new character additions in this book, and they are perfect. We also get to see more of the libraries inner workings and complexity of character. Fantastic read from start to finish, can't wait for book 3!

It’s a book 2 and unfortunately reads like a book 2 immediately. Stopped a couple pages into chapter 1. Not appropriate for our libraries, as we look for books that stand alone due to the small space we have.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC.