I picked up The Astral Library by Kate Quinn on a whim, as I so often do. Whim books for me sometimes end up being stunners and keepers (while others turn out to be groaners.) I generally pay full price and I always hope not to regret that, as retail for harcover books these days is pretty outrageous.
I do not regret paying full price for this novel -- one of my highest compliments.
The premise: Alexandria (Alix) Watson is having one of the worst days of her young life: her credit card is declined at the market while she's trying to buy survival foods, she gets fired from one of her three part-time jobs for being profanely honest, she's losing the dismal room where she lives due to her roommate's jealous girlfriend, and then discovers what little money in her checking account (and her incoming paychecks) are being stolen by a stranger. She finally escapes it all at the public library. There she steps through a secret door into another, far grander library where time stops, she meets an impressive (and forbidding) head librarian, and she's invited to live in any of her favorite books.
Who wouldn't want to live that way? Only things get complicated. Other patrons like Alix are being threatened out of their books, and the library is beseiged by an unknown enemy. The attacks continue, seriously wounding the head librarian and leaving Alix scrambling to keep things going. Meanwhile, the library board is threatening to take over and monetize everything -- and worse, they're using Alix to get inside.
It's hard for me to talk about this book because it is in too many ways the story of my childhood. Like the protagonist, I took refuge in our local public library to escape the dismal circumstances of my existence. I was adopted, not fostered, and very small instead of plus sized, but otherwise the protagonist's experiences were remarkably similar to my own (mine was rather more violent in the early years, and a lot more religious overall.)
That first library I escaped to was housed in a mobile home trailer and was almost laughable, considering how small it was. It was also the saving and the making of me. I would go there after school and stay right up until it closed, just reading books. I spent entire summers there. The librarians never stopped me from reading anything, and sometimes gave me books they were going to throw out. I hoarded those discards like priceless illuminated manuscripts (and yes, fifty years later, I still have some of them.) When we moved, the first thing I found was the public library in our new town.
The public library is really why I achieved anything and everything I have in my professional life, which went far beyond what anyone could have imagined I'd do. Books were my parents, my mentors, my friends. They taught me how to leave the world in which I'd been dumped, explore whatever I wanted, and start building worlds and universes of my own. They taught me to be a writer when I couldn't afford a proper education. They were the family I should have had. To this day the only place I relax entirely is inside a public library.
I loved this story, and I suffered from many painful memories while reading it, too. It is difficult to be reminded so comprehensively of my sad past, and that is to me the only true downside of this novel (that and the fact that an astral library will never exist.) Be aware that the ending is not a meaningless happily ever after, but as apt and genuinely uplifting as it should be. The characters are impressive and so realistic you feel as if you know these people. Uptight readers beware: this is not a book for people who support any kind of discrimination, no matter how well-intended. It's not for well-off snobs or the uber, intolerant religious. It's not meant for folks with charmed lives. This was written for kids like me who never had a chance, and had to make one for themselves -- usually inside a library. Highly, highly recommended.
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