The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

Remember when you first watched The Matrix and had no idea what was going on for the first hour? This is how I felt reading this book.

Of course, after The Matrix was over I had a better understanding of what was going on in that world. With this book, I finished it and still remained in the dark.

A group of adopted children are raised by a man in a building they call The Library. They each are given strict guidelines as to what their life will be about. This man whom they call Father is very abusive. He expects and demands they stay within their own path and not interfere with the other's.

Is he God or a god? Are these children demigods? You're guess is as good as mine.

Then Father goes missing and the children are left to find him and answer so many questions. (I think that's the plot) Plus there's a little budding romance going on that felt shoehorned then resolved.

So it's a fantasy book. But it's also incredibly violent, gory, and vulgar. On top of that, each chapter feels like you have to start all over with orienting yourself to the story. I think it's written that way on purpose but it drove me out of the story so many times thinking, "What in the world am I reading???"

I was not at all a fan of this book. Too violent, too bizarre. But I understand many others are proclaiming this book to be compulsively readable. I'm not one of those.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Broadway Books.