Review of The Astral Library by Kate Quinn

With just a few historical novels, Kate Quinn has skyrocketed to the top of my list of contemporary authors to buy. The Astral Library came as a very welcome surprise to me. It’s quite different fare from Quinn’s other work—more fantasy than history, though with a few historical elements, to be sure. It didn’t impress me as much as I was expecting, yet that’s because Quinn has done so well for me in the past; maybe I set the bar too high.

Alix Watson grew up in the foster-care system and now works several odd jobs to just barely make ends meet. With her identity stolen and those jobs now crumbling beneath her, she stumbles into the eponymous Astral Library. It’s your standard interdimensional library, complete with a magical Librarian at its helm—but this time, the twist is that the Astral Library helps people find refuge by living in books. They have to be public domain, and you can’t be a main character or derail the plot, but other than that … pretty much anything goes. However, Alix’s introduction to the Library is cut short when it comes under attack, and her relocation into a book of her choice is put on the back burner in favour of helping the Librarian defend it.

I am a sucker for stories about magic libraries or living in books. The Starless Sea, The Invisible Library, The Midnight Library, and I could list more … it seems like a lot of authors want to try their hand at this trope. And why not? As Quinn acknowledges here, what avid reader or writer hasn’t envisioned themselves inside a book world?

There’s a lot to love about The Astral Library, and I will get to that. However, first I want to talk about why I didn’t love this book.

For me, Quinn’s talent lies in telling extraordinary stories about ordinary women. She embeds history and excavates the foundations of patriarchy. Her stories are sprinkled with just enough fact to make the fiction more palpable.

Now, I don’t want to pan this book just because it isn’t historical fiction. But I do think that Quinn’s departure from her usual genre is evident here. The characters feel a lot less developed than the historically inspired ones of The Rose Code or The Briar Club, and Alix lacks the verisimilitude of Mila in The Diamond Eye. Everyone other than Alix and, to some extent, Beau and the Librarian, feels paper thin.

The main villain (whose name I will withhold to avoid spoilers) is a great example. First, Quinn telegraphs her identity from a kilometre away but then treats it like a big reveal. Second … she is not all that imposing. Like, I totally see what Quinn is trying to do by making a commentary on how oppression manifests in the twenty-first century in the form of corporate boards and expense reports and bureaucracy. She has a point! However, it just doesn’t make for gripping reading here. I’m sorry, but “Alix reads the Board policies and procedures” is not the battle I want my girl to be fighting. Then again, maybe I am the problem (it’s me) and deliberately missing Quinn’s point that none of this is sexy, yet we must do it anyway.

I’m also not a huge fan of the romance subplot to this book. It felt undercooked, kind of slipped in at the last minute—not exactly a surprise per se, yet also not particularly rewarding.

All right, so if I’m this displeased, why did I say there’s a lot to love here? Because even when I don’t love a whole book from an author like Quinn, I’m still going to love a lot of it. The Astral Library itself is well realized, and I really enjoyed the idea that there are astral versions of an art gallery and a video game system too. In this way, Quinn acknowledges that people use many forms of art to escape.

The trips to the book worlds (as fleeting as they are) were enjoyable jaunts too. I wish we had experienced more of them, or of a longer duration, but I am sure that was a balance Quinn spent a fair amount of time working out.

Finally, I am quite satisfied with the resolution around Alix and her mother. This is an instance where Quinn’s telegraphing pays off in how it sets up a delightful twist, and honestly, it works so well. Not everything has to be a mystery, and not everything has to be magical.

The Astral Library is a solid urban fantasy novel with a charm all its own. I buddy-read this with my bestie, and she said she wasn’t comparing it to Quinn’s other novels because it’s so different. Wise words. I can’t help myself, of course. Nevertheless, I also want to acknowledge how it brought me a couple of afternoons of enjoyment—something I desire every time I visit a book world.