Winter Reads: The Great Library: Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

New American Library; 374 pages; Amazon

Ink and Bone, book one in The Great Library series, has been sitting in my to-be-read pile for awhile now. I believe I had received the book through the Blogging for Books program. I knew nothing about the series prior to reading the book last Friday, well, except for the fact that's it's written by Rachel Caine, the author of the Morganville Vampires series.

The novel is set in a world where the Great Library is available in every city. While people can have access to the wide-range of books in the library, you cannot own any books. Alchemy (aka the government) wants to control what written knowledge is available to the people.

The main character is Jess Brightwell, who believes in the value that each book possesses in the library. However, most of his knowledge came from the illegal books owned by his family.  At the request of his father, Jess joins the Library training program, which is located in Alexandria. Of course his father has other reasons for why he wanted Jess to join, such as stealing books.

The training program is led by Scholar Christopher Wolfe, who doesn't want to teach a bunch of teenagers the way of the Great Library. One by one the students are kicked out the program, but Jess makes it to the final assignment, which involves searching for lost books in a war zone area.

Final Thoughts

I don't keep up with all the dystopian YA novels that are out there on the market, as there are just way too many of them. This explains why I had no knowledge about The Great Library series until I stumbled upon it on the Blogging for Books website last year. If I'm correct, there are two sequels already published.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading Ink and Bone.  It's well-written, the dialogue is intriguing, the main character (Jess) is likeable, and the descriptions are wonderful. The only downside to the novel is that I kept comparing it to the first Hunger Games novel. I have no idea why I did this, but my mind was on Katniss Everdeen for some reason or another.

Overall, The Great Library: Ink and Bone is an entertaining read.

*I received a complimentary copy from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

About the Author

Rachel Caine is the New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author of more than forty novels, including Prince of Shadows, the Weather Warden series, the Outcast Season series, the Revivalist series and the Morganville Vampires series.

Learn more about the author at: rachelcaine.com