What a fun story. This is the book for anyone who loves libraries, and dislikes bureaucracy. At times things were a little far-fetched, bu,t hey, it’s a story!
The heroine and her colleagues were sufficiently quirky without becoming too ridiculous, and there were many parts that made me smile. I would have liked a happier ending, or to know there was a sequel (hint).
So, if you love books, bookshops, libraries, and a story that is different to so many of the repetitive stories out there, then I thoroughly recommend this. I received a review copy but would happily have paid for this.

I admit I was attracted by the title. What librarian wouldn't be? However the writing was not very good and the plot was all over the place, so regretfully, I can't recommend it. The narrator starts out so passive and insecure in her quest for respect and library funding that i felt like giving her a swift kick. Then she does a complete 360 and becomes SuperLibrarian, able to figure out and fight off corruption schemes that have stymied better minds than hers for years. Meanwhile she is treating her Perfectly Perfect husband like dirt for the weakest of reasons. And all the while she is spouting the most egregious library propaganda that made even me cringe. It was a combination of Brave New World and The Communist Manifesto for Dummies. Then to add insult to injury the author ends the book with the most aggravating cliff hanger. I for one will not be waiting for the further adventures of Serenity Sweetblossom. In fact, I didn't even read the bonus chapter from the author's next book.

OK, full disclosure: I am a retired librarian, and the first 8 or 9 years of my life were spent in public libraries in Northern California. And, frankly, one of the big factors that made me leave to work in the private sector (aka “the dark side”) was having to go to the funding gods (Board of Supervisors, City Council) and GROVEL for money every freaking year. We would trot out the cute kids who talked about the Summer Reading Program, the studies showing…what everyone knows: libraries are ESSENTIAL. I just couldn’t face another budget cycle (and also being told to wear pink the Board of Supes meeting just about turned me into a lunatic). So, the opportunity to read MAD Librarian by Michael Guillebeau (thanks to Madison Press/IBPA and NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review was one I just couldn’t pass up!

The protagonist (heroine?), Serenity Hammer, is a mad librarian in the Southern town of Maddington – mad because the city council thinks libraries aren’t really needed, so they won't give her adequate funding for the library. It’s so bad she can’t pay the library’s bills – until she is online and comes across a fund and transfers it to the library account. Voila! She can pay the bills! The child of hippies who is now married to a cop, Serenity has some pangs of guilt but since money keeps flowing into the account, she (along with some interesting staff members) perseveres. Revenge Fantasy!!!!

This book has apparently pissed off some readers—which literature SHOULD do, IMHO. But not everyone is made for the same reasons you might think. Rather than be mad at the lack of support for libraries or the corrupt politics or the sexism Serenity deals with, in some strange way I don’t quite follow they are mad at – the author? Not sure, but I just know this book was a lot of fun to read. As someone who found a small to help a public library (not to the extent of adding a 7-story addition, but enough to improve things), I appreciated it – anything that makes me laugh AND think is always good!

Michael Guillebeau is generously donating $$ to benefit libraries, but that’s not the only reason this gets FIVE stars – it’s just great fun to read while making a valuable point about the need for libraries today more than ever (and if I hear one more person say we don’t need the new library being built in the town where I live because “everything is online” and “you can do research on Google,” I will scream. (Thankfully, our mayor and a City Council member are both very active in our Friends group and huge supporters of the library!)

MAD Librarian
by Michael Guillebeau
Madison Press

Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles
Humor , Mystery & Thrillers
Pub Date 01 Dec 2017

I am reviewing a copy of Mad Librarian through Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), and Netgalley:
Serenity Hummer embezzles funds for her library from what she thought was a neglected city fund but instead turns out to be a conduit for all state political corruption.
Soon Serenity has the money she needs to build her town the library it deserves, but will she survive to see it come to fruition, or will she find herself in more danger than she signed up for?
Serenity soon finds her library has turned into a crime scene.
Mad Librarian is a women's crime fiction story written in the style of Breaking Bad, five out of five stars...
Happy Reading...

After her last meeting with the city council, Serenity Hammer is mad because the council thinks libraries are not needed and won't give her additional funding for the library. Getting a phone call asking Serenity for the library's bill that needs to be paid makes her outrage because she can't pay it. When Serenity discovers a special fund for city council online, she decides to transfer it to the library funding and is able to pay her bills. When money continues to go into the special fun, she decides to transfer it again for the library. Why? Her husband is left in the dark as Serenity does feel guilty and can't face her husband who is also the police. The relationship is in trouble. She has a meeting with her staff which ends up having a seven story addition built as soon as they figure out how to get the money.

With unexpected twists and turns, I found reading it was so much fun. It made me laugh out loud at times, making my partner wonder what I was laughing about. There are some very funny moments and some scarey moments in the novel. I'm not sure I liked the ending. That was a surprise for me in that it wasn't what I expected. Read it and enjoy!

Serenity Hammer is a librarian.
But not just any librarian-- she's a librarian on a mission.
In the small Southern town of Maddington, Serenity's library is under fire from the most powerful politicians, the ones who hold the proverbial purse strings, and they're determined to see the Maddington Public Library close its doors for good. Serenity, along with her assistants Doom and Joy, has decided it's time to fight back. With a little ingenuity and a fortuitous discovery right under their noses in their own library, Serenity and her team manage to revitalize the library, but at a cost they could never have imagined.

With short, cleverly titled chapters, author Michael Guillebaeu drags you through the front door of the MAD and doesn't let you leave. Serenity, the daughter of a couple of hippies, embodies her married name and drops the hammer on town politics while proving to the residents of Maddington that they need the library, whether they want to admit it or not. Tightly crafted, the story moves with the speed of a freight train barreling through the lives of the library staff and those who find refuge in the MAD as it fights to survive a town that has forgotten how valuable knowledge is-- knowledge that can't be replaced by Amazon accounts and Google searches.

This book will make you angry while making you laugh out loud. It will leave you wanting to head to your local library and make a donation while hoping you can find your own literary pet rat with a taste for rum.

MAD Librarian is a madcap adventure of a book where the librarians have all the answers. This book started a little slow for me, but picked up and kept me guessing what they could come up with next at the MAD library.

Andrew Carnegie would love this book.

Maddington Public Library, the only library in a small Alabama town, is being threatened with closure due to a city council member's obsession to defund the library. This is the story of how the librarian, Serenity, and her staff, Joy and Doom, managed to shift from literally having no money to pay the library's internet provider to being able to fund a seven-story expansion of the library. The imaginative premise for this story is awesome in concept and execution. There is a murder - of the forensic accountant who is investigating the library's mysterious source of funds. And just to make sure it's interesting, Serenity is married to a local police detective and she talks to Faulkner, the library's good luck rat.

This offbeat novel, filled with unconventional characters, amazing dialogue and unexpected situations, is an incredibly inspiring book and a very entertaining read. Once started, it is hard to disengage. The plot is well developed. The characters, though a bit odd, seem very real in the context of this book. The author is undeniably skilled in writing dialogue - it makes every scene more real. This book should inspire every reader, at the very least, to say a heartfelt thank you to their librarians.

A book full of humour and realism. How to manage a library when there are no money ?
Really enjoyable and a lot of fun to read.
And then there's Faulkner the rat ...

OK book, you had me at MAD. My name may be Madelon, but people have called me Mad for a very long time. I even sign my email with "Love, Mad" and a disclaimer "I sign my email "Love," because Mad is my name, not my state of mind." Then there is that librarian word. Librarians are keepers of books, and, if there's one thing I love, its books! I figured with a name like MAD LIBRARIAN, this book was right up my alley. I was right!

I have often found that I get more information on dicey subjects from a book of fiction than from a book of fact. Is there really anything more dicey than government? I'm saying from small town government moving all the way to the top. Then there are the various departments, and surely, the library is a department well worth its budget.

We hear so much these days about corruption in high places that it makes me wonder what about corruption lower down the food chain. How about a little dark money in a small town in Alabama? Or, any other state in this here U.S. of A.

Guillebeau deals with some of today's most pressing economic issues, like getting a job, finding daycare for your children so you can get a job, and writing a resume to present at that all important job interview. He does it with brash good humor and the 'that I can do' attitude we like to think we all have.

There is no better way to get a point across than with well-written satire. Where else would you find a head librarian named Serenity, who isn't, with two staff librarians called Doom and Joy, who aren't. All they want to do is spread knowledge and help people while the town council keeps slashing their budget. Sound familiar?

I started my review out by saying the book was a 5-star read before I had read paragraph one. When I got to the last page, my initial opinion had not changed. In fact, I enjoyed reading this book so much that I would give it a 7 or 8 on the 5-star scale for content, writing and coherence. Some books jump off the virtual shelf and beg to be read. MAD LIBRARIAN is just such a book.

Information is power. Librarians are the keepers of information. If information needs to be found, they can do the research. They can find it. So, you may come to the same conclusion I did after reading this book. Someday librarians will take over the world!

A funny mystery of a totally resourceful librarian who manages to expand her library while alienating the local politicians. Shows how important librarians are to their communities.

MAD LibrarianIn a tragic mirror of real life Serenity Hammer is a librarian who has to fight for every penny to keep her library open. But the Powers That Be won't oil just any squeaky wheel, just the ones that oil them back. So Serenity decides that she's going to take matters into her own hands, whether it's legal or not.

As a former librarian, this book really hit home. The story is a good one. The execution... (sigh). The writing is rather stilted; it makes the reading less than smooth. Characters are just a little too broad and stereotypical. This was obviously a labor of love and I like that some proceeds from the sale go to a library but I probably wouldn't generally recommend this book.



Two and a half stars

This book comes out December 1

ARC kindly provided by NetGalley

Absolutely loved Mad Librarian. I hope there are follow ups for it.

I really wanted to enjoy this book; it was an interesting premise, I was intrigued by the Breaking Bad comparisons, and it seemed like it could be a fun read. While the beginning was intriguing enough, unfortunately, it petered out and lost my interest. I struggled to get to the half way mark.

This is a book which I enjoyed even though it takes some time to get to the actual murder. It’s not your traditional murder mystery, rather it’s a quirky story whose main protagonist Serenity Sweetblossom Hammer is head librarian at Maddington Library. Always looking to raise money to keep the library open, whilst its budget is being cut, Serenity comes across something strange within the town councils accounts – lots of money – and decides to put it into building a new library which will be the hub of Maddington.

Free money, because there is no such thing, comes at a cost and you are taken down a crazy, MAD road of murder, corruption and passion. The passion of books and what they can do for an individual, a town, a community. The passion of librarians to provide for their community. The question here is not so much ‘whodunnit?’ but what will taking dodgy money cost Serenity in the end?

The characters Serenity, Joy, Doom etc aren’t quite sufficiently formed but are enjoyable. The storyline is interesting but it doesn’t take itself seriously. So, instead of a tense murder mystery full of corruption and manipulation we get a lighter version although the ending is perhaps sadder because of that. This is a tale of morality as much as it is murder – satirical? Mmmmm?

There are still so many children, YA and adults who cannot afford to buy books, get internet, get answers, information and educational support within easy reach if at all. The cutting of budget to libraries that provide such vital resource and services to everyone is being felt across both the UK and USA and is a travesty.

Thank you to Madison Press and NetGalley for providing an e-ARC in return for an honest review.

Rating: 2.5/3*

The librarians of MAD fight the good fight, say the things we are all thinking, then do the things that none of us actually do when we are wide awake. I was happy to go along for the ride. I did feel that the hero library staff needed fleshing out (wanted to know more about the secondary characters). The bad guys felt two dimensional. I did not quite understand the links and explanations at the end, and hoped for much more-- these superheroes needed some more personal connections to their crusade (what happens to the son, the husband, the league of librarians that was hinted at as backup, the mysterious OHR).

I can't deny it--both the cover and the title made me pick it up. Reading it was another matter. Apparently the librarian Serenity, the protagonist, is screaming tired of fighting for funding for her library and she's mad as hell; ain't gonna take it any longer. So this forty-something librarian decides the city has been ripping them off and she'll simply help herself to a little of their "special projects" funds.
Serenity Sweetwater Hammer and her two co-librarians, Doom and Joy, man the Maddington, Alabama town library. First the novel lugs to a slow, almost agonizing, start but proceeds with dialogue that I'm having a tough time visualizing between middle-aged women. The language between these supposedly educated, intelligent southern belles is a bit off-putting.
Yes, I know...I know! This is billed as satire, but as some humor or jokes tend to disguise cruel truths, this satire bites and becomes philosophical lecture. The message here tends to be repeated as the characters degenerate into roughly caricatures of bad ass con-women. (And I'm not buying that Joy, the oldest, would participate.)
As Serenity pursues her agenda, she tends to get further into left-center field from her cop husband, Joe, and disengages from discussion with him. Her two cohorts seem more than willing to follow her progressive ideas with Doom (the youngest of the three) pushing it ever further afield until it becomes farcical.
This plot takes several twists and turns. Forget trying to second-guess what's coming next. About the time you are lulled into boredom by the next library lecture, something happens totally out of the realm of reality. It might turn into fantasy were it not so deadly serious. These people are playing for keeps.
Sexism runs rampant and I wasn't thrilled with the bedroom innuendos or scenes. And the ending? I'm still shaking my cell phone, waiting for the next chapter to fall out. That can't be the way it ends.
Plot-driven, we don't actually have the protagonist or her accomplices fully fleshed, although Joe becomes sympathetic. Apparently there is a MAD Librarian Fun (madlibrarian.org) and half of all profit from sales will go to the fund.
I was given this download from Madison Press through NetGalley and appreciated having the opportunity to read and review. Perhaps this is better aimed at a younger women's fantasy fiction set. Not sure I could recommend, but opinions vary widely. You might find the message, and the satire, inspiring.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley and Madison Press for free in exchange for an honest review.
Serenity Hammer is the head librarian in her small Alabama town. As is often the case, she is expected to perform miracles on a smaller than a shoestring budget. When she discovers a city slush fund, she decides it is time to get mad as hell and fight for her library. With the help of Doom and Joy, the other librarians on staff, Serenity spends the money to make the library everything a librarian could dream of. Along the way she has to navigate corrupt politicians, drug dealers, threats to her life, and a crumbling marriage.
The beginning and end of the book are fast-paced and entertaining. The middle bogs down and suffers from repetition. The concept of the book was appealing; however, the execution was occasionally clunky. I was hoping for more.

I enjoyed this book. I chose this as part of our Sep Suspense theme. I was intrigued by Serenity's drinking habit.....i don't suppose librarian consumes drinks in the library, or do they? Really gripping plot, but was little disappointed with ending.

Promising and intriguing concept but poorly executed. 2.5/5 stars