#Review: THE LIBRARY OF FATES by Aditi Khorana

THE LIBRARY OF FATES

Author: Aditi Khorana
Series: N/A
Source: Purchased from Kobo
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: July 18, 2017
Overall Rating:
Diversity Rating:


Summary:
No one is entirely certain what brings the Emperor Sikander to Shalingar. Until now, the idyllic kingdom has been immune to his many violent conquests. To keep the visit friendly, Princess Amrita has offered herself as his bride, sacrificing everything—family, her childhood love, and her freedom—to save her people. But her offer isn't enough.

The unthinkable happens, and Amrita finds herself a fugitive, utterly alone but for an oracle named Thala, who was kept by Sikander as a slave and managed to escape amid the chaos of a palace under siege. With nothing and no one else to turn to, Amrita and Thala are forced to rely on each other. But while Amrita feels responsible for her kingdom and sets out to warn her people, the newly free Thala has no such ties. She encourages Amrita to go on a quest to find the fabled Library of All Things, where it is possible for each of them to reverse their fates. To go back to before Sikander took everything from them.

Stripped of all that she loves, caught between her rosy past and an unknown future, will Amrita be able to restore what was lost, or does another life—and another love—await?

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

Oh boy. Oh. Boy. I really wanted to like this one but I should have known it wasn't going to be the one for me when I saw the reviews on Goodreads coming back as middle of the road. That's probably why it took me almost half a year to read it (I preordered it and then it sat on my Kobo for six months). But I had high hopes! It was compared to THE STAR TOUCHED QUEEN (which I loved) and THE WRATH AND THE DAWN (which I tried to read three times and couldn't finish), so I expected a solid 3-4 star read. Wow was I wrong.

I thought the world was lush and well described - I could easily understand where the characters were and their journey was understandable. But the characters themselves were dull and boring. None of them popped off the page or made me root for them. I couldn't understand their true motivations, just what the surface level aspects were. I never actually felt like Amrita and Thala were truly in danger during their journey because it was so clear that they would be fine.

Amrita didn't have the scope of emotions I would have expected from someone in her position. She was really hard to connect to because she had a very limited range of emotions (and that was cut in half after she "ended" her relationship with half of the "love triangle"). I really wanted to like her and her story but I just couldn't care about her. I actually preferred Thala, but think that might only be because at least Thala had some emotions and reactions to what she foresaw. 

And the ending..... Come on. This was just ridiculous. I needed more from the "time travel" portion than what we got. It just didn't quite make sense to me, especially combined with the soul mate thing. Which is a very vague "spoiler" because I can't give you a detailed spoiler about it because it was so rushed and not well explained.

I have so many thoughts about how poorly executed this book was and this one sticks out most to me: the main character could recognize her mom that she had never met before and knows exactly 2 things about because they have the same fingernails. You have no idea how many times I wanted to throw this across the room but I'm on my phone and I didn't want to break it. I would actually recommend The Wrath and The Dawn over this and I didn't even finish that one.