Paper and Fire (Great Library, #2)

by Rachel Caine

[sa090]

I'm glad that the third book is out and in my possession because I really really have no intention of waiting till I have it, even if this book was weaker than the first, the story is incredibly interesting for me to want to stop.

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So unlike the first book we don't have a big plot to follow but more on the notion of us living through their lives and current stations now that they effectively joined the library before we get to explore the darkness in the library at a much much closer range than before. Does that make the book boring? It depends on the definition of boring. Basically the book doesn't do much to actually progress the plot for the majority of it, like I already stated our protagonists just got stationed in their library positions and working their way through it before they start discovering things and planning accordingly. It definitely made the book feel slow paced compared to Ink and Bone, I personally wasn't in any hurry to finish it because of the mood it set, BUT I don't think of this experience the same way as the way I thought or felt when reading Clash of Kings.

I mentioned it in my thoughts of book one and I'll mention it again; Rachel Caine has perfect control over the pace of her book. The slowness of the book makes a lot of sense when I take the position of the characters at the current time, either following the events of the first book, the happenings in the majority of this one or their discovery of things that led to others. It would be way too convenient if they managed to discover everything they needed in the first 5 chapters and we moved to high speed action right after that, other than convenience, it would kill the implied danger of the library if children who just got assigned to their positions managed to sneak past everything and discover all they did in such a tiny amount of time.

Speaking of danger, the greyness of the characters and entities in the book is back in full throttle here. The book kind of leans a little too much in one direction for some while leaving the other for a very long time but in the very last few chapters we get instances that clearly shows that no, these entities are definitely not that clear cut and I absolutely love that about the series. Things are way more interesting when you're not sure exactly who's going to be stabbing who in the back, as ominous as that may sound lol.

The things I didn't really like that much in the book were the wasted opportunities to take things a little further in terms of world building. In Ink and Bone we got introduced to this amazing world with many unfamiliar terms that got explained in a small way over time but it left out a lot of things unanswered or rather unexplained that it feels like a bummer. In the downtime we had for the majority of the book, it would've been a great addition to it if this world was made clearer for me than it currently is, it could be because it kills it in a way for later? Not sure but I definitely hoped for more in that regard. For instance so I can make my point a little clearer: the "Archivist Magister" is the highest and most dangerous person in the library, I finished book 2 and that person still hasn't made an appearance.... Yep.

Another would be that one of the romances in the series feels like it's there just for the sake of being there, there is a fierce kind of love in it but there is no real basis for this thing or more accurately the level that's portrayed here. It could be a sense of loyalty and regret more than anything that manifested into something else but it still doesn't make that much sense to me so I'm not sure. The bonus thing to this book though is that the romance is on the side in this book, there are instances of it for sure but it's still there for me to know that it's still around.

Suffice to say the slowness of the book wasn't my main issue with it, on the contrary, rather it was the wasted opportunities since I still feel like I barely scratched the surface in this series in that regard after reading these two books and two novellas so I'm hoping that I'm in for a treat when I begin to read Ash and Quill.

Final rating: 3.5/5