Unfortunately, this did not work for me. The pacing felt inconsistent. The characters weren't entirely interesting. The actual promise of "the Dead:" felt unrealized. The selling point - Ropa being Zimbabwean and Scottish - felt more trivial than entirely useful to the plot. I'm sure this will set up more for the series but wasn't compelling enough for me to continue.

This book is just marvelous. It’s got a near-future dystopic setting, with all the creative and dysfunctional ways people adapt to crumbling civilization and a devastated ecology. A world in which ghosts hang around, pleading to speak with their loved ones and a secret academy trains wizards in the depths of Edinburgh. Best of all, though, is teen narrator, Ropa, a “ghost talker” who blends her Zimbabwean heritage with snappy Scottish slang, a gift for compassion, and intellectual curiosity.

Life is hard enough for Ropa. Along with her grandmother and smart-talking younger sister, she lives in a decaying RV and is always behind on paying rent for their spot. She’s had to drop out of school, her ghost-talking work is unpredictable, and the future doesn’t offer much. To make matters worse, children have been disappearing…and when they’re found, they suffer from extreme premature aging. In a seemingly unrelated incident, an old school friend from a posh family sneaks her into an underground library of the occult where she’s threatened with immediate execution for trespass until she’s given a student pass. Now, armed with a newly made classmate, she’s off to discover who’s taking the missing children and what’s happened to them.

The voice of narrator Ropa is the best part of the book, vivid and compelling and smart. She’s so engaging that I kept turning pages even when it seemed the mystery and other story elements were never going to come together (they do!) It felt like a braided novel, but I was more than happy to go along with Ropa as the linking thread. It’s impossible to overstate how powerful the narrative voice was.

Though I bought this for our adult section of the library, I think maybe it will do better with the teens.

This story is both haunting and entertaining. A seriously fun read if you get the chance to pick it up (which I highly suggest).

The story itself was easy to read and the pacing was perfect. Ropa's character and her story arc are both fascinating and you will fin yourself flipping page after page to keep up with her adventures in Endinburgh's underground.

If you like ghosts, magic, quaint Scottish settings, and libraries, you are sure to find something to enjoy between these pages.

Huchu creates a breathtaking original start to a series that I hope to see much much more of!

3/5 Stars

** I received this as an E-ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review, Thank you!**

I don't think this book was for me. This felt very slow, and I felt like I was missing something the entire time. I just couldn't get into the charactrers or the story. I would say if you are interested give it a chance. I can absolutley see why someone would love this book.

Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this didn't work for me. I didn't connect to the narrator, the premise, the story. I did not find it easy to follow and I wanted to like it a lot more than I did.

2 stars.

I liked this enough! There's a really interesting blend of 'academic' magic and innate magic, and it's very cool that Huchu took time to do that. I don't know that this is totally about the library?? But I can easily see more spinoffs with the library and the workers as a theme.

The Library of the Dead really surprised me because it is Extremely my type of stuff! There’s a playfulness to this story…it’s campy & funny, but also very, very dark. It’s a great balance that Huchu strikes, while also delivering some impactful commentary on racism & classism. A story that exists right on the line between urban fantasy and horror. Again, while this book is published by Tor, and subsequently marketed as adult, I really can’t think of any reason why this wouldn’t appeal to younger readers looking for something dark & fantastical.
Full review to come on YouTube.

I really wanted to read this one as an ARC (it's on hold at my library now) but the format was not accessible on my Kindle device :( excited to read it as a published copy though.

The premise, though interesting, didn't work out for me. I'm not sure if it was the pacing, or the main character, but there was something about this book that bored me. The narrator was trying too hard to be ruthless for a big chunk of the book, before things started to pick up.

Urban fantasy isn’t usually my favorite but boy did this book blow me away! I didn’t know The Library of the Dead was going be a series and definitely older teens to young adults would enjoy this book. I especially liked the MC voice - Ropa. It’s distinctive and fits really well with the story line. The only thing that left me wondering after was what was the epidemic that created their diseased world?

This was published back in June, but I figured this would be a good seasonal read. And it was. I still don’t know why its title is The Library of the Dead though!

The setting is a dystopian near-future Edinburgh, Scotland, after some sort of unspecified catastrophe. Our main character is Ropa, a teen (15) who makes a scanty living by talking to ghosts and charging to take their messages to the living. I loved her snarky “voice”. She speaks with a lot of Scottish slang but it’s easy to understand in context. People greet each other formally with “God save the king” and a formal response of “Long may he reign.” You can imagine Ropa rolling her eyes while doing this.

The author writes beautifully, with vivid descriptions of the landscape and the ruined city, which would probably be even more enjoyable for someone who is familiar with Edinburgh and its environs (I’m not.)

Ropa lives with her grandmother and younger sister in a caravan (what we in the US call a trailer or RV/mobile home), paying rent to stay on what used to be a farm, along with many other families like hers. Ropa’s grandmother has been trying to teach her magic from their Zimbabwean heritage, but so far she hasn’t learned much, as the story begins. This book is a bit closer to the horror genre than I would normally read, but at least the story was a good one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I'm a sucker for ghosts. I'm a sucker for Scotland. I'm a sucker for representations of magic from a diverse range of culture. Everything about this book was designed for me personally, and I am so thrilled to have had an opportunity to review it. I'm even more excited to learn that this is the start to a series, and I'll have the chance to read even more dreamy, spooky, ghost-talky, Scottish-set adventures down the line. Thank you so much!

3 stars! The atmosphere was great but the plot fell short. I wish that this had more development and was a bit longer.

First of all thank you NetGalley for this book. The title had me intrigued but once I started the book the mystery had me hooked. Ropa has her job of delivering messages from the dead. Trying to get payment for the messages can be tricky but she’s got it figured out. She’s got her routine down and she’s got her regular customers. Then she meets Nicola. Nicola can’t find her son and wants Ropa’s help. At first Ropa declines, but then she finds out that other children are missing. Now she has to find them. This book has plenty of twists and turns to keep your interest and now I’m ready for the next book

What isn't to love? A child who basically has a side hustle giving messages to dead people from family members., but as with any good tale there are obstacles that get in Ropa's way. This book is funny, sarcastic and it is an overall adventure. I initially did not think that this book would be something I would like, but I was wrong and I really enjoyed it. This was a great read!

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar

The Library of the Dead starts with Ropafadzo “Ropa” Moyo, a fifteen-year-old ghostalker, a person that relays messages from the deceased to their families for a payment, arriving at the house of an older couple to help them. After talking to the ghost, and helping the couple have a conversation with it, they manage to solve its unfinished issues and make it leave. On her way home, we learned that Ropa hasn’t had the luckiest life and she is the sole provider for her family: Grandma and younger sister. Her Grandma was the person who taught her all she knows, but now that she is older and gone blind, Ropa takes care of her as she did for her and her sister.

While trying to work and deliver messages for the dead, Ropa meets the ghost of Nicola who is trying to find her son. While Ropa doesn’t work pro-bono, after Nicola’s insistence, she decides to help her find her son Oliver.

What starts as a missing case, Ropa’s journey takes her deeper into the underworld of Edinburgh, its gangs and high society individuals, and the graveyards. But most of all, this missing boy case leads Ropa to the Library of the Dead and her getting a library card.

I liked the character of Ropa and her personality that tries to keep her family safe and give them all the financial support that she can, but she still has principles and tries to help Nicola. It was interesting how she used the Mbira to channel her powers to talk with the ghost.

In the case of the supernatural theme, the story had many subplots to work with and took Ropa through a variety of small quests to find the villain’s hiding place and the missing kids. This is the first book in the series, so its job is to set up the world-building and the hidden main plot of the story. Some readers will think the narrative is going on different paths, but if you stick to the end, it all meets.

One thing that I liked about this type of fantasy or supernatural genres is the alternate universe that they create. In the case of The Library of the Dead, the history of Scotland changed after the events of the Troubles and magic is present in people’s everyday life in this world.

While I know it is part of the narrative and it shows the age and lifestyle of the characters, it took me a while to understand the slang that Ropa and her friends used, and it hurt my eyes to read the text message between her and Jomo.

As a reader, you can see early on who will be the characters that will be important for the storyline and that we may be seeing later on in the upcoming books. I’m interested to know who the Tall Man that the villains kept mentioning is, and what importance does Sir Callander has in Ropa’s life.

I liked the concepts of learning magic in this series, how elemental magic is taught by Ropa’s Grandmother, and the magic books she reads along with the narrative. In the end, I think she is going to blend both of the teachings she learned and understand what Gran was talking about.

I wonder if Ropa’s sister, Izwi, will have some abilities like her and her Gran.

I recommend you read The Library of the Dead, by author T.L. Huchu. In this new story, a girl who listens to the messages of the ghost and delivers them for a fee takes on the task to hunt down a missing child that others have forgotten.

2.5

I have to admit, I'm really struggling with this one. I really loved the main character, like she was actually a star, but the pacing was just completely all over the place. For example, there's all this build up to Ropa finding out about the Library of the Dead in the book and there's one page of her being amazed by the library and then she's immediately discovered and escorted out. It was so fast I was just like, that's it? And then there was this bizarre fifty page long sequence in the middle that felt incredibly disconnected from feel of the rest of the world. magic wise. It just felt like this enormous unnecessary section added in just to add it and then when you get to the final reveal of the bad guy, it was so predictable.

I thought the descriptions of Ropa using her mbira to communicate with ghosts were beautiful and I loved the way she thought about and interacted with her family, but I wish they were more in the story somehow. I don't know! I was so confident that I'd like this one and it ended up being just so underwhelming. Womp.

A very interesting concept from a perspective not seen often enough. Good fun and a world I'm glad to have spent time in.

I've been sitting on this review for a few days now and I still haven't found the proper words to gush about how much I loved this book. Everything about it exceeded my expectations and made me hungry for more. I'm excited for a sequel. I'm excited for whatever Huchu decides to write next. Whatever it is will be an autobuy from me, no question.

One of the biggest strengths of this book is Huchu's worldbuilding. The setting is dark and atmospheric with a perfect balance between the fantasy and the realistic. Huchu has a way of describing things that are very foreign in a way that makes them feel familiar and relatable. Even the most outlandish fantasy scenarios seem less farfetched when you can picture them so clearly. Reading Huchu's writing is a memorable sensory experience that's such a treat throughout the book. His writing is just so easy to read - it's delightful.

The same balanced qualities of his worldbuilding apply to his storytelling and character crafting. Ropa is a truly unique character who is easy to root for, even for all her sharp edges. I enjoyed seeing her cleverness and badass moments countered with softer moments with her grandmother and little sister. I fell in love with her grandmother, because how could you not?? Ropa's friend group - both old and new- are colorful, dynamic supporting characters that bring their own flare to the page. I appreciate Huchu giving them the space to be their own characters and occasionally letting them steal the show for a few pages.

The story itself is dark, mysterious, and incredibly compelling. I had a difficult time putting this book down because I always found myself wanting to spend a little more time and learn a little more. I enjoyed the blending of real world danger with events impacted by spirits and the spiritual realm. The concept of ferrying messages between the living and the dead felt original and provided and interesting framework to kick off the action. I also really enjoyed the secret magical library and constantly found myself wanting to know more about it. Definitely eager to see how Ropa's magical education plays out in future books.

Overall, this is a great read full of:
-lovable and interesting characters
-secret societies with magic libraries
-dark criminal underbelly mysteries
-so much Scottish slang
-action, action, action
-all the family and friendship feels

Highly recommend for all my dark urban fantasy fans OR for those looking for an easy introduction to the genre. You couldn't do better than this one.

Ropa ekes out a living hand-to-mouth, supporting her grandmother and younger sister by running messages from ghosts to the living. It’s a dangerous world, where cops are muggers and children are vanishing without a trace.
Then a ghost asks her to find her missing son, and a friend invites her into a secret society that quickly complicates her life—and may just end it.
I’ve realized of late how much I enjoy being guided through fantasy or historical worlds by characters with a gift of gab. Ropa is an autodidact, listening to audiobooks and podcasts (a girl after my own heart) as she navigates the post-apocalyptic landscape of Edinburgh. I loved her asides about the experience of learning something only to realize how much more there is, always, to discover. This is a book I enjoyed, and it promises sequels I look forward to reading.
Received a free copy via NetGalley and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.