Book Review: The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson

The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Title: The Library of Broken Worlds
Author: Alaya Dawn Johnson
Genre: science fiction
Published: June 6, 2023
448 pages
My rating: 3/5

Seventeen-year-old Freida has lived her whole life exploring the tunnels of the Library, the celestial peacekeeper of the three systems. As the daughter of a Library god, she has unique access to the information stored in the depths of the Library. When she meets Joshua, a mortal boy desperate to save Tierra, and Nergüi, a disciple of a persecuted religious minority, she decides to break ranks with the gods and help them. For that, she must kill the bloodiest of gods. But first, she will tell him her story.

The Library of Broken Worlds is a science fiction novel set in a far-future society with its (apparently AI?) gods, planetary wars, and philosophical musings about multiverses. The concept was certainly interesting, but I felt the execution was lacking. The worldbuilding was complex and difficult to follow, despite the narrative having tons of exposition.

I was reminded of the experience I had about twenty years ago when I wanted to get into science fiction. Unfortunately, the first book I picked up was William Gibson’s Neuromancer. I say unfortunately, because that book scared me away from the genre for several years. I guess I was too young to understand a lot of the vocabulary Gibson used, so I didn’t understand who the characters were, where they were, and what they were doing. I had a similar experience with The Library of Broken Worlds, although I found that as I continued reading, the worldbuilding became more easily understandable.

Considering how much worldbuilding this book had, I felt that it was badly explained. After the first 70 pages, I still had no idea what was going on and what the story was supposed to be about. I expected a library to have books, but that was not the case. How the library functioned wasn’t fully explained at any point, and what the “material gods” were was only explained towards the end of the book – and I still don’t know whether they were supposed to be some sort AI too complex for human understanding or something else entirely.

This is most likely due to my own ignorance of the genre conventions, as I have not read this type of far-future speculative fiction before. Someone who is more into the genre will probably find the book more easily approachable. I had hoped that this book would work as a gateway to the genre, but unfortunately, I can’t recommend it for that purpose.

I also found the characters thin and underdeveloped. It might have made sense in Freida’s case since she isn’t fully human, but in the end, she was the most interesting of the characters. Her determination to show her humanity and her self-discovery made her an intriguing character. All the other characters, however, seemed to exist solely for the plot. Freida’s relationships first with Joshua and later with Nergüi happened at lightning speed. She meets them, and in the next scene they are already together. There was little to no chemistry between the romantic couples, and no information on how and why the relationships came about.

The book also had too many plotlines. At first, Freida’s goal is to become a librarian. For this end, she must compete against several other students to become a novice librarian. (As a side note, this part of the book felt very young adult, whereas the rest of the book reads like adult science fiction.) This competition plotline is quickly forgotten, as Freida reaches her goal early on in the story. From there, the focus shifts to a law suit she wants to help Nergüi win, and then to preventing a war that threatens to destroy the worlds. I think either the plot should have been streamlined or else the book should have been expanded into a trilogy. As a trilogy, the different plotlines could have been developed further, and the worldbuilding would have had space to expand more organically.

I also didn’t care for the ending. The whole book seemed to be heading towards one resolution, and what happened in the end felt rushed and undeserved.

I battled between giving this book three or four stars, but in the end, I decided to give it three stars. The writing was good and the worldbuilding was intriguing, but unfortunately this book simply wasn’t for me. However, if you enjoy science fiction books with complex worldbuilding and intricate politics, you’ll probably enjoy this book a lot more than I did, and in that case, I can recommend this book.