Publisher: Hyperion
Source: Purchased from Amazon
Rating: 4.5 Stars ***
Goodreads Summary:
Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.
Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what she once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often—violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.
Being a Keeper isn’t just dangerous—it’s a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da’s death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.
In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption
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This book was easily a 4.5 for me.
This book initially took me awhile to get into it. I picked it up from the library and stupidly left it as my last book to read. So by the time I got around to reading it I had to return it. I did, however, enjoy the book enough (100 pages in) to feel confident about buying it.
It is quite a complicated book in the beginning. At many points throughout the story the main character is narrating the story to her grandfather and it's written as "You did..." "You always..." etc. which was very confusing at the beginning of the story. I didn't understand what was really going on until I got a few more chapters into the book. You also don't really understand what the terms mean or what's actually going on but I don't want to fault an author for writing a complex story. Complexity is good!!! Eventually things make sense. Push through! It's worth it.
I really enjoyed Mackenzie Bishop as the main character. She's very young and you can definitely tell by some of the choices she makes. She doesn't ask for help or give information easily. Information that may be beneficial to solving the mystery. On the other hand, she's been told many times to not trust others. My heart ached for her many times. She was very young and had to take on a great responsibility alone.
I kind of went into this book blind so I wasn't expecting any romance. I was pleasantly surprised. Sign...Owen. Sigh.....Guyliner (Wes) They were both great characters but Wes definitely won me over with his sense of humor and charming personality.
The story was unlike anything I'd read before. It was so different and creative I had no idea where the story was headed. The twist at the end was exciting and not what I expected. I definitely plan on picking up The Unbound soon.
