Reading Log as of September 13, 2025 - The Book That Wouldn't Burn

 

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence (559) is a convoluted story that turned into a slog towards the third half of the book and the continued spiral turned me off. I didn’t care whether I finished it or not, but did just to find out what happened. Definitely won’t be reading the rest of the trilogy.  An alternative world where life sized bugs were the enemy and life kept recycling.  The centerpiece, a library, which was a maze and a portal to different world. A brother and sister are stuck in the world of books, an assistant and a soldier with a mechanism that took one in the world of the book.  Librarians and apprentices, the keeper of the books and many, many secrets.  Books that would turn one into a ghost, floating through the stories.  At the end I didn't know if any of the characters were real or ghosts. 3 stars

“The boy has lived his whole life trapped within a book-choked chamber older than empires and larger than cities.

The girl has been plucked from the outskirts of civilization to be trained as a librarian, studying the mysteries of the great library at the heart of her kingdom.

They were never supposed to meet. But in the library, they did.

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.”