That’s a link for The Librarians.
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I flew through the book and enjoyed reading it, but ultimately I felt a little disappointed. I liked her way with words and I even warmed up to the whiny Nicolas who despite the gilded cage has reason to whine - my husband described this as the book about “the slave who wrote books with his own blood,” when I told him what I was reading. Mostly I just never quite believed in the magic and that’s pretty critical for me in a fantasy. So I’d run up against stuff like cell phones and electricity didn’t work well. (But the basement room was powered by electricity! And I think Nicholas’s mansion may have been too.) Why were the wards okay before Esther turned 18? Who would just turn you loose like that without any education? Does the mirror thing actually seem consistent? Why does no one use magic for anything useful on a larger scale? How could it be kept a secret? Anyway, I’m rereading and will see if I feel less bothered this time. On the plus side, I really liked the descriptions of places.
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Like @jerseysouthmomchess I finished this book a few weeks ago and I’m hoping my memory of it is still working for this discussion. I enjoyed the book. I liked it, not loved it. I found it interesting and read it rather quickly. I was also taking aback by the beginning of the book with the way the dad died and the thought of writing books with blood kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies. I felt the target audience for the book was more young adults than reader’s my age. Still, I enjoyed reading it and I’m not disappointed that I did. Not sure I would read a book 2.
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Once I read the dad’s gruesome death I returned the book without reading further. I thought the description was gratuitous and an indication that the book was not for me.
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I also finished several weeks ago and my memory is getting hazy. I don’t read a lot of fiction and I only like fantasy that isn’t for fantasy readers as described above 
but I liked this book and listened to it pretty avidly. I even listened at home (usually only in the car) to be sure I finished it before it was due back. That said, I would also put it in the good, not great category. I would recommend it but not push it on people. Like someone above I also didn’t understand why the wards worked until Esther turned 18. I don’t think that was ever explained. Nor why her father didn’t explain to her why she had to move every year. Did he not want her to know she was a scribe?
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I think that was part of his paranoia. He seemed to feel that the less his children knew the better. Abe’s actions really bothered me, so one thing I’m going to pay attention to as I reread.
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Ooh good point. Though you’re right that is incredibly disturbing that he didn’t give his daughters the tools/knowledge they needed to survive.
I just finished after staying up till 3 last night trying! Obviously it gripped me, though fantasy and magic are not my favorite things.
First impressions. The writer has a way with words, especially descriptions of nature. I loved Esther, that she was an electrician and a martial artist and an independent spirit (though that latter was partly forced on her). I liked the relationships among the four, how they grew and changed. That Core Four reminded me of the gang in Harry Potter and the siblings in the Narnia series (but those are the only other magical books I’m very familiar with).
The first half of the book or so had me torn up with existential questions. Blood being the core of so many “real-world” religions, I kept looking for deeper links to Judaism and Christianity, especially. Father Abe (Abraham). Blood sacrifice. “Hearing magic” as an almost religious/orgasmic ecstasy, like saints. Yet those religions would condemn sorcery.
Also, is anyone in charge of this world? Who created the magic, why does it exist like this, who made the arbitrary rules about how the books work, and wards and mirrors and all that? Is there a God figure? Is Richard Voldemort? (And for that matter, to what extent is our world arbitrary and random, and we don’t always see it because we’re in it?)
Well, these are sketchy preliminary undigested thoughts, and I know they will take better shape when we discuss!
Somewhere around Book Three, I thought the author was losing steam, writing from her outline and giving us piles of exposition. That long tedious chapter where Cecily explains all … that is why I finally went to bed last night, good grief! It sort of turned from a deep dark soul-grappling mystery into a cheesy romance novel. Or so I thought in the deep of the night.
It all ended up sweetly, didn’t it, except for Ol’ Richard, who dies like the Wicked Witch of the West. Wonder what Maram/Isabel is up to now? Do I hear wedding bells for Joanna and Collins?
I wouldn’t read a sequel, but I did enjoy this one, and I’m still thinking about it. Thanks to those who nudged me into reading it.
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I also loved Joanna’s relationship with the cat, and how it illuminated her longing to connect with another being. And that she was a reader of romance novels. There is a deep core of love in her.
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I’m another who read it some time ago and don’t remember many details. I enjoy fantasy kinds of books. But this quote sums up my vague memories - at some point, it seemed to turn a corner into way too much explanation. The mysteries didn’t unveil organically in the course of the plot. I did enjoy the book and am glad I read it. But even though I renewed it twice, I never felt like rereading it.
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So many great comments and questions! I’m going to add one more to the mix: How did our foursome dispose of Richard’s desiccated body? And even if it ultimately dissolved into ash and they swept it out the door, there would still be a lot of ‘splainin’ to do to the staff and his black market customers, among whom he was apparently pretty well-known.
Re the cat, I was sure its presence was going to be instrumental to the plot in some way, but I was wrong. It was really just Joanna’s “familiar” – a nod to traditional witch tales.
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Yes, I was halfway expecting the cat (or even the dog, who saw all!) to turn into a human or some kind of weird speaking spirit at some point.
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I get that. I read that opening segment quickly, and I guess I’m a little bit hardened anyway. The rest of the book has minimal violence/gore, which I appreciated. Richard’s demise is kind of comic-supernatural – reminded me of the melting Nazi in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” I’ve unknowingly picked up some shockingly graphic mainstream books (browsing at bookstores and such), and put them right back down again – works that were popular at the time of publication (like Silence of the Lambs, American Psycho, etc.), but were absolutely unreadable (for me).
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The book was just okay for me. There are so many unanswered questions. There are so many questions that I am not sure what to ask. The book was a bit disjointed. For me, it got better when Tretheway pulled the gun out in the clinic. (Although, I didn’t really trust him from when he was introduced.)
What I didn’t understand is why Nicholas had to keep writing as he kept getting weaker. If he was the only scribe, wouldn’t you think that they would want to keep his blood supply up? (Well, there was Esther, but we didn’t know that at the time. I just kept thinking, give him iron pills and let him build his blood supply up.)
I just know that there will be at least one sequel. I am not sure just how far Torzs can take the story, but it is obvious that there will be more. I might read it again, but I will just probably donate it to the library.
Actually, I preferred the fantasy in Remarkably Bright Creatures!!
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True, but I didn’t mind the cheesy romance part. It wasn’t dramatic – just felt very tentative and sweet. I didn’t think it was unrealistic, as Joanna and Collins had few opportunities to meet people, and were both imbued with a weird gift that would make for awkward conversation with a potential love interest outside the magic circle.
The wards didn’t actually ever work for Esther, but it was not until she was 18 that Abe learned that info:
“But when I was eighteen my father realized that the wards he used to block our house from being found didn’t block me, so all anyone had to do to find my father and stepmother, and my sister, and the whole collection, was find me” (p. 185).
Abe does give Esther instruction and consequences, but not much else, “Wherever you are, you must leave on November 2 and keep moving for twenty-four hours, or the people who killed your mother will come for you, too” (p. 8).
Richard wants to keep Nicholas weak enough to mostly incapacitate him (he’s exhausted all the time, often can’t focus or think straight). It’s a way of keeping Nicholas prisoner. Richard is not too concerned about Nicholas’ long-term health, as he is plotting to kill him in order to ensure his own immortality.
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But that doesn’t make sense - if the wards on the house didn’t protect Esther from being found why didn’t richard find her each year on November 2 when she was younger? Given he seems to find her immediately each time she fails to move as an adult? There has to be something about her becoming 18 that changed things but I’m unclear what it was.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Richard looked for another scribe at first. He started looking about the time Esther turned 17. Nicholas was getting to the age where he’d be disposable but, in order for that to happen, a second scribe had to be found. Nicholas is the one who has to die, right? For immortality to work Richard needs the blood of a close relative. Anyway Nicholas is the one who wrote the spell looking for a second scribe at some point. Did Maram warn Abe and Cecily?
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Ok that makes more sense.
Despite that beginning actually the whole thing felt sort of cozy fantasy to me.
Right. To be more specific, Richard actually resumed looking around that time. For years, “Richard had gotten complacent…letting the November date pass” because he believed John (Nicholas’ father) was the last Scribe. With John dead and Nicholas still a child, Richard was not able to use the seeking spell because it required the eye of a living scribe age 13 or over. Once Nicholas turned 13, Richard took his eye and re-activated the spell. Maram had warned Abe about this timeline and that’s why he told Esther to get moving (she turned 18 as Nicholas turned 13).
Yes. I think the opening scene sets a misleading tone for the book – there’s likely little else in the novel that @MMRose would have found as disturbing (well, maybe the whole eyeball extraction thing 
).