I think this cover art is kind of, odd. I was hoping it would make a little more sense once I finished reading the book, but no such luck. The gold lines are an open books with pages springing upwards, but I don't understand the blues and greens. I'm going to assume the woman depicted is supposed to be the main character, Sefia. Perhaps the blues and greens with the vague plant patterns and land patterns are supposed to be from different scenes of the book? I don't know. The star pattern on the bottom is interesting too, but again, I'm not sure what they're related to.
Cover art aside, an amazon summary, "A stunning debut set in a world where reading is unheard-of, perfect for fans of Inkheart and Shadow and Bone
Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin’s been taken, or if she’s even alive. The only clue to both her aunt’s disappearance and her father’s murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book—a marvelous item unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society. With the help of this book, and the aid of a mysterious stranger with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her aunt and find out what really happened the day her father was killed—and punish the people responsible.
With overlapping stories of swashbuckling pirates and merciless assassins, The Reader is a brilliantly told adventure from an extraordinary new talent." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
The story begins when Sefia is older and on the run with her Aunt Nin. Sefia went into the marketplace for supplies, but when she tries to return to her Aunt Nin, she witnesses the kidnapping of her Aunt Nin instead. The books leaps into a flashback of Sefia's childhood. Sefia grew up in a small village with three people in her life; her mother, her father, and Aunt Nin. Her mother died from an illness when she was younger. Sefia never saw anyone outside of these three people, and her existence was kept hidden from the world. She actually lived in a secret room under the house that could only be accessed by a hidden door near the fireplace. When finds her father murdered in the house, she goes into her hidden room, and escapes through the other hidden doors to get outside. When she opens one of the doors, an object falls out. Sefia scoops it up and manages to get outside. She finds her Aunt Nin who immediately takes them on the run, making sure the object is safely hidden in their packs.
Then, we get a different narrator; Lon. Lon is someone who is an apprentice to the Librarian. He was picked up by the librarian from the streets where he had been using a second vision to read people for coins. The librarian makes him his apprentice to help uphold the values of the library, and to eventually someday read The Book for himself.
Back to Sefia. Sefia is trying to track down her Aunt Nin, but along the way she discovers a camp of people who have the same mysterious mark on a crate as she does on the object (which is a book, we know this earlier, but I didn't want to say anything until now) she has kept hidden since her escape from home. Desperate for answers, she pries open the crate to find a young man inside. He doesn't speak, and she realizes he is probably one of the boys captured and forced to fight. She frees him from the camp and tries to free him to the world, but he chooses to stay with her.
That's enough summary.
I found this book to be a very bizarre reading experience. I found it hard to follow along and to fit the clues together that were periodically presented. I think the book is working itself towards a giant metaphor of dissecting the human experience by having each character and situation be a representation of an aspect of humanity.
...but I don't want to read the sequels. I believe this is book one in a trilogy, and based on what I read, there are only certain aspects of the story I'm actually curious to know how they resolve. Frankly, I don't care about Sefia and the young man (Archer). I didn't find them to be very relateable characters, and I found a lot of their knowledge about their world to be very frustratingly lacking. I assume this is because the readers are learning about the world as the narrators do, so it gives more of a depth of understanding about not only the characters and what conclusions they draw about the world as they learn it, but also to slowly reveal the tapestry of the world as the guard molded it.
Speaking of the Guard, I'm going to go into spoiler land. So if you don't want any aspect of this book ruined, I would consider to stop reading this review right now. Cool? Cool.
So the Guard. It's revealed towards the end of the book that the librarian and assassin we've been periodically reading about are part of the Guard. The Guard wants the book back so they can see the past, present, and future, and help guide the kingdoms to peace. ...can you see why I asserted this book is probably a giant metaphor for dissecting the human experience? Hmm? Anyways. The Guard does a lot of harm in the name of good, trying to work towards this peace. This is a plot device that deeply upsets me. I strongly dislike these kind of plot devices that people with higher levels of experience, knowledge, and skills are working in the shadows to control the world and everything they do may seem evil, but it's for the greater good. Trust them. In this book, that takes the form of targeted murder of groups of people, young boys being stolen to fight in the cage fights, and also that the world exists as a result of the Guard's guidance. So really, if this group of people is supposed to be powerful enough to shape the world, why did they let it go to crap in the first place? If they are all knowing, why didn't they stop everything to begin with? I suppose if I read books 2 & 3 I would learn about the history of the Guard, why they came to be, what their deeper motivations are, but I don't think I would be satisfied with any answer. Which brings me back to the metaphor. I presume this book is using the Guard as the metaphor for people trying to play 'God' and screwing it up. Without reading the sequels, I have no way to confirm or deny this theory I'm asserting....but I also don't care enough to find out. I feel like this book is trying to be a thinking, contemplative book about the existence of people and how we all impact each other. If that is the case, I would expect more philosophy, less magic, and less survival elements throughout the story. I don't know, I'm just grumpy about this book. I just don't think it did anything particularly well, including explaining the mysterious symbol that Sefia was using to track down her Aunt Nin. Which again, I assume I would discover these answers in the future books, but what this book failed to truly do is make me care enough to read the sequels. ...grumpy, I know.
Happy reading!
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