This book had such a cool premise, but unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my expectations. The idea of a magical library that connects worlds, complete with sages, dragons, and a multiverse of stories, sounded amazing. However, the execution was all over the place. The plot felt messy, with too many characters and locations introduced without enough depth to make me care about any of them. The pacing was uneven, starting off slow and never really finding its footing.

While I appreciated the creativity behind the world-building, it often felt overly complicated and bogged down by constant explanations that disrupted the flow of the story. The characters didn’t leave much of an impression either, with little to no development for the protagonist or supporting cast. I kept hoping it would pick up, but by the end, it was a struggle to stay engaged. There’s potential here, but it just didn’t come together for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the E-ARC. I really wanted this to be a favorite/🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟. Sadly there were some flaws. Mostly the first half of the book, where it was just a bit confusing on who was who. I wish the chapter headings included the character were following as that jumps around. It’s also very kid feeling without being a children’s book. With that said I would absolutely love to see this made into a movie.. As sometimes movies can help the imagination so much better than me. (ie. Harry Potter). I will definitely read the next book in the series.

It was so messy and boring. I fell asleep multiple times. It has no right to be this boring - there is a magical library, a dragon somewhere, and sages with magical powers - but somehow it just is.

The premise is okay, despite it being described as a 'stunningly original epic fantasy'. In my opinion, nothing about it is really stunningly original. Magical library? Mark Lawrence's 'The Book That Wouldn't Burn' did it better. Magic wielders? If you read this book, you'll find that their powers don't quite make sense (we'll get to this, I promise you). A dragon? The Elixir of Life? Seen that, done that. Sure, there was some attempts at originality with certain aspects of the world-building, the magic system, and the villain, but at the end of the day, there's nothing truly mind-blowing about any of it.

Nothing in this book works for me. Not the plot, not the characters, not the world-building. The issue lies in the execution. This book is compared to 'The City We Became' by N. K. Jemisin and Brandon Sanderson’s 'Mistborn'. Now I've not read these two specific works, but I've read the writings of these two authors, and I can tell you that they are superior. The writing here is so bad at times, and there are seriously questionable creative decisions. For example, we found out that Helia escaped from the destruction of Vesuvius. How do we know this? One character told another character about it. Like, somehow the author stumbled upon the most distant and boring way to get this information across. Helia's lover was also killed off immediately upon introduction and somehow the book expects us to feel Helia's grief? I DON'T KNOW THAT DUDE! I barely know Helia, and I have no reason to care or mourn! (By the way, this isn't the only book I've read recently that does this. Is it a trend now, to kill off a protagonist's boyfriend immediately after mentioning him?)

It is a pet peeve of mine to wait for the plot to catch up to my understanding. Now I don't presume to be very intelligent, but I could make immediate connections in this world while the characters stupidly floundered about. For instance, the sages are accompanied by Orbs, which are intrinsically linked to them and grant them powers. When Helia's boyfriend was killed early on, his orb sought out this character called Nu. Immediately I thought, "Is Nu the new sage then? It seems obvious to me." But it took literally hundreds of pages before that fact was confirmed.

Another example of how the plot lags behind the average reader's thoughts: The library has been magically functioning for ages, and after the attack of the Ash Man on the Rose Garden, the library started going haywire. For whatever stupid reason, it never occurred to any of them to connect the two events. They even have the Sage of Knowledge with them, for goodness's sake, who somehow couldn't figure it out? It took Arturo, a newcomer to the library, to point out the link because of 'cause and effect'. Wow. Cause and effect, such a groundbreaking idea. Jesus, so much for the Sage of Knowledge, and I laughed when he was described this way: 'His talent had always been a love of puzzle-solving, of dissecting information in order to solve the problems in front of him.' Uh, what kind of puzzles have he been solving, two-piece jigsaw puzzles?

At the same time, this book has a tendency to bash you over the head with the most obvious stuff. At one part Nu was somewhere, doing something, and we have this: 'And then suddenly her mind was elsewhere'. In the next section, in italics, we see an impending battle at another location through Nu's eyes. What do we call this? A vision, you say? Then you're smarter than Nu, who spent quite a bit of time wondering what was happening. Eventually when Helia explained it to her, saying, "It's a common reaction to having visions...", Nu's thought went, 'visions?'

Sigh.

The plot is MESSY. This novel tries to cover so many places and so many characters, none of them felt impactful. The whole book is written like a sloppy RPG game, with plot points dictated by dice rolls or something. We have the characters going from one location to another, encountering seemingly random obstacles/side quests. There's a maze at the bottom of the Tree of Life (by the way, the names in this book feel like placeholder names) which filters out 'unworthy people', but you have to go in blindfolded. Why? Beats me. But you'd die if you remove your blindfold. Also for all the talk about worthiness, the bad guy still somehow managed to get in, and the good guys almost got killed? There are Rock Giants serving no purpose other than to give our characters a half-minute scare. Helia and her friends travelled to Clockwork Mountain, encounter more obstacles, steal something, and then go to the City of Forever, etc. Ironically for all the action and danger, it was hard for me to feel anything. Helia is poisoned? Eh, okay, she'll probably live. Flaming creatures after them? Run faster, I guess?

Oftentimes the writing is tedious. Look at this passage:
'... this room felt very different to the others he'd seen so far - a basic, almost secret place, squirreled away from the magnificence of the main rooms and plazas and gardens.

He knew immediately that this was a room hardly anyone ever saw.'

Yeah, I figured that out with the 'almost secret place' and 'squirreled away'. But hey in case you missed those hints anyway, we have one character explaining a few paragraphs later that, "Few visitors ever know about this room. We keep it off the beaten path..."

Holy, I GET IT. STOP TELLING ME THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

There are many more examples of such writing and it disrupted the pacing of the book. I constantly feel like plot information came slowly. There was no tension whatsoever because the author got bogged down trying to over-explain things. Even after the climax and the resolution, there were still SO. MANY. PAGES of explanations! Look, if I don't care about the characters when they were in danger, I certainly don't care about them when they were out of it, so can we please stop?

The magic system doesn't make sense to me as well. Helia as the Sage of Hope controls nature, because... na-nature is hope? The irony that she was a survivor of a volcanic eruption did not escape me because like, yeah, nature is so hopeful at times with ash clouds and giant flaming mountains. The Sage of Strength fights with wind? Of course, you already know my issue with the Sage of Knowledge.

On par with the low average intelligence of the characters, the solutions to the problems in this book were laughable. **spoiler alert** You have a poison? Well reverse it to get the antidote. An important character has died? Don't worry, plot contrivances to the rescue: you can resurrect the character using your MEMORIES and a bit of magic. You need a key to get to a certain place? One of the characters, Dzin, conveniently has it as a family heirloom, which he carries around even though he's on the run! **end of spoilers**

If I have to find something to like, it would be the small bits of humour that could be found from almost 450 pages of dry writing. I have a few characters I kind of, sort of care about, such as Arturo and Dzin (but not Helia, the main character, who failed to elicit any feeling from me). But at the end of the day, it pains me to say that this is possibly one of the worst books I've read this year, and it was such a struggle to get through it. If I didn't request for this through Netgalley, I would have DNFed this a long time ago.

The Great Library of Tomorrow by Rosalia Aguilar Solace is a science fantasy novel about the Great Library, a limbo of sorts that connects Earth to the Paperworld, a multiverse of stories that can only be accessed by the Library's Sages, who travel between universes through portals accompanied by their Orb companions, which function as communication devices, personal assistants, and amplifiers for the Sages' powers. When Suttaru the Ash Man, Library enemy of legend, reappears and is bent on destroying the Library, the Paperworld, and (by extension) Earth, it is up to several Sages, an Earth man, and a motley crew of Paperworld residents to stop him and save the Library from devastation.

The world in this book feels like a mashup of Doctor Who and Yggdrasil from Norse Mythology, with a dash of His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, all within an enormous library. This novel is a good fit for readers who enjoy adventure/quest stories, multiverses, multi-POV narration, and dramatic action sequences. Readers who enjoy imagining characters and events beyond the page also have a lot of room to play here. Solace has a great imagination for worlds and ideas--experienced readers of spec fic will be able to piece things together, though this is not the best introductory book for the genre.

Delving into this novel felt a bit like playing a video game, particularly during the exposition. The reader is dropped into the world(s) of the Great Library as if they are already familiar with the rules, and must infer how the system works by exploring the different areas and talking to NPCs. Cut-scene-esque explanations are provided, but only much later on; this might be less confusing if these clarifications had been moved earlier in the book, accompanied by maps, in order to provide a visual sense of how the multiverse is constructed and connected, especially when bouncing between so many characters in different places with different worldviews.

In addition, the importance of Earth to the Great Library and the Paperworld is unclear. For a place that only rarely appears in the novel, the Earth is almost over-proportionally affected by Suttaru's chaos and the Paperworld's endangerment. The Sages--and aspiring author Arturo--all come from Earth, rather than the Paperworld universes, but the Paperworld characters are more familiar with the Great Library's Sages than the Earthlings are, begging the question as to whether Earth is a required presence in the novel at all.

It would also have been helpful to have more context about the relationship between Sages Helia and Xavier before Xavier dies in the prologue, as this would better inform the readers regarding the motivations behind many of Helia's actions and decisions throughout the book. Similar questions arise around Suttaru, as well. Why is he so bent on destruction? What instigated his attacks? The answer remains unclear. That said, the best developed plot arcs in the book were those of Dzin's Elixir of Life and the City of Forever. They had the most concrete details, fleshed-out characters, and world exploration. Dzin's story could have been a separate book all on its own.

Finally, although there is an author's note about the music festival Tomorrowland, the connection between the festival and the novel is unclear, besides a tangential reference in the title. More clarification would be appreciated.

All of this to say, I really wanted to like this book more--and do absolutely adore the cover!--but the current structure of the book is very confusing and leaves a lot of questions. This is a book I'd actually love to see adapted into a graphic novel, in part for the visual cohesion, in part because the ideas lend themselves very well to a graphic novel format. Perennia the dragon would look amazing!

Readers who enjoy the elements present in The Great Library of Tomorrow may also enjoy: Tower of God by SIU, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, The Great Library series by Rachel Caine, the Inkworld series by Cornelia Funke, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Doctor Who, and the very expansive tree-related Norse mythology.

This book was fun and had an interesting concept. The Great Library of Tomorrow is a magical place outside the confines of space and time that also has portals that connect to many other worlds. When an enemy that was long thought dead returns to wreak havoc on those realms, the Sages, or guardians of the library, and their friends must band together to protect the library and its realms from being destroyed.

I thought the world building was pretty well done and nicely spread throughout the story. I was able to learn about the world organically as the story went along, without having a bunch of information dropped on me all at once. The different realms were also well crafted and felt like real, fleshed out places with their own cultures and histories.

The story started off pretty slow for me, and it took a while to get invested in what was happening. I also didn’t connect with many of the characters, and the POVs all felt pretty much the same. The ending left me with a lot of questions, but that makes sense since this seems like it will be a trilogy.

Overall, this wasn’t one of my all time favorites of the year, but I had a good time with it. 3.5 stars.

I’ve had this ARC for a few months, and I’ve made a few attempts to really get into it, but unfortunately, I’ve only managed to make it to around 25%.

On paper, this should have been the perfect book for me as I love books about books/libraries and I could tell right away that this one is a love letter to books, stories, words, and language. I just felt lost almost the entire time I spent reading the book. I always expect some confusion in fantasy as the world is being built, but there has to be a point where it levels out and I start to understand what’s going on and sadly that didn’t happen for me.

I did like the writing and I really do want to know what happens to Paperworld so I hope to give The Great Library of Tomorrow another try in the future.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get past the writing style of this one. It was overly wordy and yet painfully simplistic at the same time. It reminded me of my own writing from my pre-teen years.

I think the basis for this story was really cool, it reminded me in a very vague way of that one library episode of ATLA. I enjoyed the worldbuilding enough to give the next one a try.

Blackstone Publishing provided an early galley for review.

The general premise of this fantasy tale certainly intrigued me. The concept of a central library out of time which can connect to the worlds is ripe for potential. Despite all that, though, this novel started out a bit rough for me. There were things in the author's writing style that were not working for me.

For example, two characters would be having a simple conversation, and between the first one's question and the second one's answer we would get a ton of character background information inserted. As a reader, I like to get those details organically as the story dictates I should be given them. Otherwise, it can come across as information dumping - something published writers should be avoiding. A half dozen chapters in, the author introduces an outsider character Arturo to the Great Library, acting as a surrogate for the uninformed reader and thus asking questions to allow for other characters to explain the world-buidling details. This method works better.

In fact, it is Arturo and his interactions with Sage Robin that I found the most engaging. His curiosity and her personality worked well. As for many of the other characters, I found them much less interesting and thus would lower my focus on the overall story.

A great first novel that gets most of the elements right. The premise of this novel is what struck me the most. I had been searching for an epic fantasy that didn't revolve around elves or dragons and this did the trick. I think my only two complaints were the plot/pacing and the absurd number of characters and POVs. There were so many characters that I had trouble keeping them all straight. The plot sort of got conflated and confusing in the middle of the book and I was a little lost in the sauce. Part of this is Solace's writing style and how descriptive she is. So much could be edited down and removed from this book without impacting the story. It leaned a bit Tolkien-esque to me in the way Tolkien is renowned for having pages of descriptive filler that don't lend anything to the story.

I will give book two a shot because I did enjoy the concept of this story.

This is a new fantasy that will be loved by many. It has good world building and can be pretty intense. But the images created are very real and I felt that I was there with these characters as they are trying to save this world.
It is a very long book though, but I think once you get into it, it moves pretty fast.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

DNF. Very disappointing - I loved the premise, but the prose was very simplistic, and it was immediately obvious that the worldbuilding was going to be the same. The prologue was a train-wreck of boring cliches, and it didn't get better from there. (Over-the-top unremittingly evil villain casually slaughtering a minion who tripped during a conversation? Yawn. You don't look like a scary Dark Lord, you look like an idiot who is swiftly going to be out of minions.) The magic wasn't nearly as interesting as I'd hoped, and every character we encountered seemed painfully one-dimensional. There was absolutely nothing holding my attention or giving me a reason to push through/care about what was going to happen next.

I so wanted to love this one! But I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Portals. Death. A library. Destruction. Magic.

An unexpected ambush at the heart of Silvyria, in the Rose Garden, turns Helia's life around: her friend, Xavier, is killed. She has to get back to the Great Library and tell them about the threat she witnessed with her own eyes. Thinking Suttaru was long dead, he wants revenge. He was one of the first to inhabit the Great Library. But his work got him too close to evil which in return made him turn away from the Great Library and everyone he stood close. They have to work to find the missing dragon and how to save Paperworld before destruction hits them. ❝Dum spiro spero. While I breathe, I hope.❞

I so badly wanted this to be a 5 star read, but somewhere along the way this story lost me a bit. There were so many POV's and I got lost a bit. As I continued reading on, it got better as I got to know the characters. But it felt like this had way too many chapters/pages. it could've said a lot with fewer pages/paragraphs.

Some quotes I liked:
❝Thick flakes swept across his path, an unnatural and bitter rain that smelled of the destruction of life.❞
❝The figure turned his head back as it rained blood around them.❞
❝‘This is the Great Library of Tomorrow, after all! A place for mystery and magic. (…) If the Library is like a book, where the story moves at a different speed than reality, then us Sages are like characters in within that book. So, once you become a part of the story, time is no longer linear; you cease to age.’❞
❝They all ran for their lives, away from the horrific beasts and its babies, as the nightmare beings chased them, setting everything they touched ablaze.❞
❝‘We cannot stand by and allow her to be at the mercy of those who would seek to disrupt the balance. It would be catastrophic.’❞

I think many fantasy lovers will be pleased to hear that this book has a map! Although it did not have one when I read the advanced readers version, I'm sure this will be a great addition to the story when published. Also, dragons!!
Keep in mind, that this story is not for the faint of heart; the descriptions of violence, death, etc, is so presence in this I'm sure fantasy/horror lovers will find this a treat. It can be light at times, but the danger is there, creeping in the shadows, unexpectedly turning up.
Not sure if I will continue reading the rest of the books, but it was a okay read. I bumped it up to 4 stars because I made a favorite in Helia, and the horror element was well written. Hopefully, this will be someone's next favorite read!

Happy reading!

This was a fantastic book. The world that was built and the characters are some complex and continue to build off of one another throughout the story. This is a great fantasy book and one of my favorites I've read so far.

Beyond its compelling storyline, the book stands out for its insightful commentary on the human condition, weaving philosophical questions into the fabric of its narrative. The author's skillful use of language not only enriches the text but also elevates the reader's experience, offering new perspectives on familiar themes. Whether it's the intricate dynamics of relationships, the exploration of identity, or the confrontation with ethical dilemmas, this book tackles complex issues with sensitivity and intelligence. It's a testament to the power of storytelling to illuminate the nuances of life, making it a valuable addition to any book lover's collection. Regardless of genre, this is a work that resonates on multiple levels, affirming the enduring impact of well-crafted literature.