I really liked Freida, how vulnerable and emotional she was, how intelligent and conflicted she was, and her capacity for love. I genuinely cared about her, I just wish I’d better understood all that went on so that I might have been more engaged with the overall story.

I got the gist of this (to a degree) but so many of the intricacies of the story went over my head due to painfully little explanation for anything.

I wouldn’t want an author to feel like they’re compromising their artistic vision and this book was undoubtedly artistic, but at the same time, I kept feeling like surely the integrity of the storytelling could have been maintained while meeting readers part way, not dumbing it down, not turning this into an easy, simplistic read but just by adding the occasional clarifying sentence here and there and maybe a glossary of some sort that might have allowed this to be a tiny bit more accessible. ( )

In The Library of Broken Worlds, Alaya Dawn Johnson creates a complex science fiction-fantasy world that often overwhelms its first-person YA plot. The story is set in a far-future world in which humans, aliens, AIs, and humans—both cloned and natural—prowl the tunnels of a vast library that governs three systems. Freida is a human girl who aspires to become a librarian, one of the highest positions in her society. Dozens of tales from various subcultures break up the straight path of the adventure romance story. At times, Freida seems to be a future version of Scheherazade. I am sure this novel has a large, appreciative audience, but it does not include me. ( )