BookBrowse Reviews The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence

BookBrowse:

A girl seeking to discover the secrets of an ancient library meets a boy trying to escape it. Together they discover horrible truths about their world and a looming war.

In Mark Lawrence's fascinating fantasy novel The Book That Wouldn't Burn, Livira's life is upended when a sabber—an inhuman invader—attacks her small village in the wasteland known as the Dust, slaughtering the adults and kidnapping her and the other children with the intention of selling them into slavery. They are quickly rescued by soldiers, however, and taken to the city of Crath. There, she is selected to become a trainee at the ancient library that forms the heart of the city. The library is immense and at times perilous, full of magically locked doors, literal and figurative labyrinths and, of course, countless books. It is said to contain all possible knowledge, and it is the librarians' job to make sense of such vast stores and hunt down the specific information their king demands. As Livira learns and grows, she pushes ever farther into the uncharted territory of the library while also facing threats from those who believe "Dusters" such as herself don't deserve a place in the city.

Evar has spent his entire life trapped in the library. Over the years, he and his adopted siblings were one by one trapped in a mysterious Mechanism, only to be released together decades later, long after the rest of their people had been slaughtered by sabbers. The Mechanism—whose workings remain unexplained—allows those who enter to live the contents of whatever book they bring with them; though they did not physically age inside it, Evar's siblings emerged transformed into experts on warfare, psychology, history and espionage. Only Evar has no new knowledge, just a void where his memories should be and the sense that someone is missing.

As Livira delves deeper into the library, Evar tries to escape it. Over the course of the book, their stories converge in unexpected ways as they seek answers to the questions surrounding them. The romantic elements complement the mystery well, as do excellent worldbuilding and character development, but for me the book's real draw is the opportunity to explore this extraordinary library through the characters' perspectives and experiences. Livira's view of the library and the city that surrounds it—ever changing, developing at a breakneck pace—contrasts with Evar's static prison. Lawrence wonderfully conveys a sense of time's passage, both on the grand scale and the personal. The library truly feels ancient, having remained while cities grew up around it, fell and grew again. On the individual level, Livira especially grows and matures over the course of the book, developing from a lost child to a confident young adult while remaining clearly herself.

The Book That Wouldn't Burn explores the conflicts between freedom of information and safety, and information vs. propaganda. Information from the library pushes weapons development ever faster, but the city never seems to get safer. Instead, with every technological gain its leaders escalate the conflict with the sabbers, driving the city closer and closer to war. The librarians help to justify the conflict. The library holds books on every possible topic and every side of any debate—the king expects them to produce not the most credible books on any given subject, but the ones that support his own position.

The book ends with many questions unanswered; it is clear that this is intended as the first book in a series. Some of the characters and their relationships are not as well developed as one might wish, particularly in a book of this length, but they have the potential to be very interesting—we can only hope the rest of The Library Trilogy will follow through.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in July 2023, and has been updated for the March 2024 edition. Click here to go to this issue.