The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith

The Book Bonfire Disclaimer: There will be spoilers. If you’re even remotely interested in this book and you haven’t read it, or if you’ll be mad if you accidentally read any possible spoilers about it, I’m going to chalk it up to “not my fucking problem”. You have been warned. Also, this is a feature about reading. You came here to read about books, so pictures in these posts will be scarce. Be an adult.

Book 1 of the Hell’s Library series

Welcome to the Book Bonfire! I am your Book Club Organizer, Thomas V. [REDACTED]. Today we will be (sort of) discussing The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith. Feel free to remove your copy from the garbage can if you feel so inclined. If you don’t want to bother, then I can’t blame you!

In a nutshell, the Library of the Unwritten‘s Library of the Unwritten is a wing in Hell where all the books on Earth whose authors have never gotten around to writing are stored. The books are unwritten. Like, some dude has an idea for a book, but he never actually wrote it. That book is in the library. Got me? Good. The story follows an ensemble cast of kooky characters! Claire is the Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing. She’s been in charge for about three decades, which is a fraction of the time of the tenure of other librarians before her. You got Leto, some naive teenage demon with greasy hair who is used as a plot device for Claire to share knowledge that the reader needs to know. There’s a lot of that. You’ve got Brevity, a “muse” who is Claire’s library assistant. You’ve got Ramiel, the fallen angel trying to get back into God’s good graces by thwarting the Hell clan. You’ve got Hero, a character who has escaped from his unwritten book. There are other characters too, I suppose…

I’m going to cut to the chase: I bailed on this book about 2/3 through. I spent about 150 pages reading on autopilot before I decided to finally give up, which is not something I typically do. It sends me into an OCD conniption fit to leave a book unfinished. This book should’ve been titled The Library of the Unfinished! Ha! Whatever. A. J. Hackwith had a trilogy published, and here I am stroking my dick pretending that I have a coherent blog.

“We have to find this book! I don’t care if we need to crawl through every sewer in Miami with our tongues scraping against the floor! We’re going to find it! And I don’t know about you guys, but I want to get those sewers right away.”
– Claire

I was totally on board with this concept at the beginning. A book about books? That’s right up my alley! I like books! A book about books sounded fun, especially if the books are in some magical fantasy land like Hell. I like Hell! A book about books in Hell sounded fun! The first 40 pages or so were intriguing enough, but then I started getting this sinking feeling that the book became a complete chore to read. Hackwith’s prose appears to be influenced by Terry Pratchett — almost channeling him at times — but Pratchett’s works are more engaging. After a while, the prose becomes frustratingly overwrought and the pictures they paint seem abstract and muddy. I couldn’t get a good sense of any of the locations outside of the Unwritten Wing. Valhalla seemed like a nightclub. Mdina, Malta seemed woefully boring. Characters always felt like they were talking amongst each other in a big nebulous blob.

The characters weren’t necessarily one-dimensional, but I realized about halfway through the book that I didn’t care about a single one of them. Not one. Claire had no personality to save her life, unless you count dry, no-nonsense plot-forwarding determination as a personality. Leto was a precocious demon who worked in the story as an ignorant figure representing the audience with whom Claire would provide some worldbuilding (which, in its own right, was ham-fisted), but he soon became, by all appearances, dispensable. Andras’ relationship with Claire was supposed to be tense, with an air of mutual respect for one another, but he was condescending. Is condescending a primary personality trait? Brevity, Hero, Ramiel, Uriel, who gives a shit? They all felt like cardboard cutouts.

“Don’t you think the sewer comment was a little bit strange, Leto? If even a molecule of my tongue touches a sewer floor, I’m going to hack it off with a fish scaler.”
– Brevity

I couldn’t connect to the plot either. The whole premise revolves around finding the pages of the Codex, a book written by Lucifer, that Heaven wants but believes Hell has. Hell doesn’t have it, but they want it too. Misunderstandings ensue. Tons, and I mean TONS, of pointless, aimless wandering from location to location. Remember Season 6 of Lost when Not-Locke just dragged the characters around the island back and forth for no reason. It’s like that.

Positivity? Fine. The written passages from various Unwritten Wing librarians at the beginning of each chapter were legitimately fascinating, thought-provoking, well-written, and by far the most interesting parts of the book. You’ll find a few examples sprinkled throughout this post in the quote boxes! lol

So, yeah, I don’t know how this ends. I got to page 240 or so. It’s too bad, because I already own the second book and now it’ll sit on my shelf collecting dust! The Library of the Unread! Ha! There’s that joke again!

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

Would you like to be a librarian in Hell?
I’d like to be a librarian anywhere as long as I get paid $100,000 dollars a year and I don’t actually need to interface with any patrons. I don’t want to check out anyone’s books, I don’t want to re-shelve books, and I definitely don’t want to chase around books that happen to fly everywhere! Along with every book that will ever be written and unwritten, I’ll also need every album, video game, movie, TV show, comic book that will ever be made and not made. THEN I’ll enjoy my time in hell. Oh, and a mini-fridge.

“IF ANYONE IS GOING TO LICK A SEWER PIPE TODAY IT’S GOING TO BE ME!”
– Ramiel

Did you like the ending? Did everything wrap up the way you thought it would?
I’ll make up my own ending! Claire takes a bite of a hot turkey sub and cracks her tooth on the cheese. “THIS REALLY IS HELL!” she cries, forgetting that she was supposed to be chasing down a book in the first place. Then they all do a little dance number.

What are your thoughts on the revelations about the different characters throughout the book? Did any of them surprise you? Did you like how the characters developed during their quest?
I’m sorry, but not only did the characters not develop during their quest, but they actually became less developed as the story went on until they shrank into oblivion and I had to wake up from my lengthy snooze.

Did you enjoy the worldbuilding? Was there something that stood out to you in particular?
Yeah right.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I bought the second book before I started reading the first book, and I regret this decision immensely. I’m going to have to buy the third book just to round out the collection. It can be a constant reminder that I’m simultaneous avoiding reading Hackwith’s work and supporting her career.

See, I can be a nice guy when I sort of feel like it, I guess.