The Archived (The Archived #1) by Victoria Schwab

 

Summary (from the publisher): Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was: a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous—it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost, Da's death was hard enough, but now that her little brother is gone too, Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself may crumble and fall.

In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.

Review: Ok so here is the situation. I was approved for this book on NetGalley way back in 2013 when it originally was published. And I never read it. And my NetGalley review rate has been affected so I come to this book now on my knees, ready to finally read and review it and finally put it to rest for the NetGalley shelf it has been sitting on for over a decade. A very belated thank you to NetGalley for an eARC. 

I am really sorry for the low rating on this one. It's me, not you, book. I struggle with fantasy, especially on audio, where for some reason I struggle to suspend my disbelief. I just never could connect to the characters of the plot of this one. The main character of this is Keeper, charged with keeping histories locked up and from getting loose. So in this world, each dead person rests on a shelf like a book and is referred to as a History. This was a really unique premise, but it just felt so far-fetched to me that she was interacting with spirits of the dead and trying to keep them under lock and key. 

I will say the audio for this was well done and I liked the personal connection Mackenzie has to her job because of the deaths in her own family. The mystery of who was tampering with the Histories was also mildly entertaining but it was difficult for me to get sucked in since I was struggling to buy into the whole fantastical element here. 

Stars: 2