The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw is my first book from this author. I have seen some reviews about her writing style before, and that is not everyone’s cup of tea. As I had never read anything from this author, the new release was an exciting time to try it out. It was released on July 22nd, and I was really excited to give it a try. To my surprise, it was a book from July’s Evernight box.
So, what is this book about?
The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.
Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.
But there’s more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa’s class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school’s library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.
Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?
I had never read a dark academia book before, so this sounded like something worth trying.
School for gifted and dangerous people/monsters? Yes, please.
The main character was kidnapped and forced to go there? Okay, yes.
They are all really dangerous to others and should be kept in a secure location? I am intrigued.
Do we need to sacrifice people to the teachers who will eat them? Give me this damn book.
On paper, this book sounds like a terrific story, but unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it much.
I disliked the writing style, which was a major issue. Every sentence felt like it should be a poem, but it was so dense I could barely get through the book. The words used in this book were so difficult so many times that it makes no sense to me, so I had to focus really hard or reread the sentence, but I still don’t always get the meaning of it right. It dragged on for so long that I couldn’t wait to finish it and be done with it. I needed more clarity, but got none. Because I have got a special edition in the Evernight box, I really wanted to finish it, otherwise I would DNF this book around page 50.
So, you get this: I hated the writing style, but what about the characters?
Starting with the main character, Alessa, who, for me, was paper. She did not feel real. I did not receive any information about her background, what kind of person she is, what she likes, or why she was sent there. Many questions went unanswered. I didn’t like her from the beginning, and typically, I don’t mind as long as the character’s arc or backstory is interesting. For more than half of the book, I didn’t even remember her name.
There were so many characters. All of them felt so 2D with no reality in them. No information is available about them, or why they are there, or why we need them for the story. Nothing.
While reading this book, I only remembered one character other than our main character, and it was Rowan. The only reason I remembered him was his jokes, and I have to say I smiled maybe twice.
There was no character development, and I struggled to remember who did what and what kind of powers they had.
The other thing that annoyed me throughout the book was the timeline. I had no idea what was going on. I was often pushed back by some kind of flashbacks and a weird dual timeline that made no sense to me, and I was not sure why it was even included, as it was not providing any information that might be useful later in the book. It only confuses me further and makes me less willing to focus on the story.
Throughout this entire book, I could not understand the sole purpose of this school.
What is Hellebore? Why was it made? What does this school look like?
We have a few pages of description of this school, but after reading the entire 286 pages, I have no idea what the reason was for this school. I have no idea why teachers wanted to eat them. I will repeat it, no explanation.
This review is somewhat boring because there are blank spaces in the book that I tried to fill, but failed to do so.
To the end.
I did not like anything in this book.
The main things that make me want to burn this book:
- zero backstory
- no character development
- dual timeline that did nothing for the story
- no idea what purpose this school had
I will give it 1/5 because it makes no sense to give it 0/5, but… nope, no.