Have you ever accidentally stumbled across your idea of heaven when reading a book? I kind of think I did when I found The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith. It is the first book in the Hell’s Library series and boy was it a doozy. The book opens with Claire, the librarian for the unwritten wing of the library, getting a message about a book having escaped from the library. The book had become active enough it manifested a character from the book who then took the book and escaped to find his author to convince her to finish the book in question. Claire is tasked with finding and returning the book to the library so she takes with her Brevity, a former muse and apprentice librarian, and Leto, a new demon, in order to help track down the wayward book. However, while on Earth to find the book they run into Ramiel, a fallen angel, who is searching for missing pages from the Devil’s bible which may have reappeared recently. This soon turns into a race to find the pages as Claire, with the help of Brevity, Leto, Hero who was the character manifested from the missing book, and Andras, the librarian from the neighboring arcane wing of the library, tries to outwit Ramiel and Uriel, an angel who serves as the Face of God.
First off, I found the primary setting of this book to be incredible. The idea of a library that holds all of the unfinished and unwritten manuscripts ever started or thought of by humanity. I was rather serious when I said this sounds like my idea of heaven as I really think I could potentially spend eternity reading in there. There is a lot more to the story though than just this wing of the library as it also revolves around the concept of what is a story. When Claire first sets out to try and track down the pages she travels to Valhalla to find a previous librarian who was also a bard, in the traditional sense. During their ensuing conversation they discuss the idea that a story is also a song and that a story does not necessarily have to be written down in order to complete or to be transmitted. Then there are the various ideas that are related to the concept of a book being able to physically manifest characters, like one did with Hero. This was interesting because it allows for the discussion of how a character or a story can evolve beyond what an author intended. In this story it revolves around how the character that manifests can change due to the events and experiences it undergoes while manifested and how that could change the storyline due to the character changing. The concept may be slightly different in our world but there are definite instances where a story ends up evolving beyond what the author intended for various reasons so it was weird to see that actually discussed in a book. Though I have to admit the way they introduced the topic was rather entertaining as Hero was an unusual and interesting character. There were also other philosophical ideas that were snuck in as well. One of the things that confused me at first was why was the library, specifically the unwritten wing, housed in hell instead of limbo or something similar. They don’t directly discuss why hell but they do discuss why not heaven and it throws out the idea that only perfect things are allowed in heaven and anything that is considered art is by its very nature an imperfect creation. I found that an interesting concept that I hadn’t really thought of before. This book was great and really made me think about so many different ideas relating to art and literature and the creation of these things. I am giving this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars.
This book is obviously fantasy and has heavy Christian overtones present throughout. There are however references to several other mystical realms such as Valhalla and the Duat so it is not exclusively Christian but only heavily Christian. If you are the kind of reader who happens to enjoy fantasy novels and are not put off by the Christian overtones than you may consider trying this book out. However, there are some dark scenes and mild violence against books so if that is not something you feel comfortable with you may need to be careful. I don’t see any reason this book would not be suitable for older teens or young adults as long as they keep those concepts in mind. Overall, a really good book and if you decide to try it feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.