Book Review: The Charmed Library by Jennifer Moorman
The Charmed Library by Jennifer Moorman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Stella Parker had never burned a book in her life. Had never once thrown pages of text—much less handwritten love letters and poetry—into a fire. Yet there she was, purposefully setting fire to one of the most precious things in her life: words.”
That is the first paragraph of the prologue for The Charmed Library. I was immediately sold. Moorman’s writing style is simply gorgeous. And it’s beautifully suited to magical realism. The early pages of this story led me to ask myself: why don’t I read more magical realism? I really should, because it’s charming. This melding of the reality I know with the magical and fantastical I long for just such a lovely, hopeful juxtaposition when handled properly. And Moorman strikes that balance well.
“As the ashes faded into the dusk, the library listened, waiting, knowing that every story—especially the ones set free—would find its way home.”
Stella sees words everywhere, and she has all of her life. They were once her greatest source of joy, her own personal magic. But those words have lost their luster to her over the years, to the point where she tries to ignore them instead of finding a way to embrace this beautiful, rare gift she’s been given. When we meet her, she is painfully learning to let go of long-gone relationships instead of gripping tight to their shattered remnants. And that’s the biggest theme in this story. You don’t have to burn the memories to ash, but you do need to move on from them. For your own sake. It’s never healthy to live in the past to the detriment of your present.
“…there would never be enough paper, enough space, to release all the words clawing, springing, secreting their way out of her.”
If you’re a lover of books, especially classics, you’ll love the references here, and the way those stories seem to leap off their pages. There are some interesting twists and rules to the magic that draws characters from their stories. I love when there are in-world rules to govern the fantastical. I also love when the author gives us those rules with a wink, suggesting that sometimes rules are made to be broken. There’s also a lovely twist on the micro-trope of bookish matchmaking that I found delightful, and I wish it would have been given more time on the page.
“That’s the trouble with books. There are always so many things I’m curious about, little pieces of information that aren’t included because how can an author possibly include everything?”
All kinds of wonderful literary characters make an appearance in this story, even if only in passing. Some of these include Peter Pan, Helen of Troy, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Mr. Darcy, Robinson Crusoe, and Captain Hook. While most felt very true to their original form instead of any later adaptation, this iteration of Captain Hook felt like he was pulled straight out of Once Upon a Time. Except not nearly as charming.
“What makes a character stay with us forever? What if the stories we love could love us back? And most poignantly: What if stories could help us find our way when we feel lost?”
The romance in this (NOT with Hook) takes a pretty steamy turn. It’s more fade-to-black than fully closed-door. In other words, it’s not wholly innocent. There are also hints of the extramarital in the backstory. These things likely stood out to me more than they would to most readers, as I’ve changed my literary diet over more and more to almost exclusively Christian fiction and classics. However, I did very much like the romantic lead. I can see why Stella was so charmed by him. The rest of the cast was also lovely, especially the head librarian and Stella’s best friend. Though I must confess there were more than a few moments when I found our protagonist exasperating.
“…just because a thing once was something doesn’t mean it always has to be. We can change our minds, start over, try something new.”
And that leads me into the subjective things that didn’t work for me. I was initially intrigued by this novel because comparisons were drawn between it and The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep—one of my favorite books about books—as well a one of my comfort movies, Night at the Museum. While I completely see this story’s correlation to both of those, it didn’t lead into the literary aspect or the magical nature of that literary aspect enough for me. This was quite obviously a romance in a magical realism casing; that romantic element became more and more focal to the plot as the story progressed, shouldering aside the magical bookishness that initially drew me in. But again, that’s a subjective stance. By and large, I enjoyed my time in The Charmed Library, even if I didn’t find myself completely satisfied.
You can purchase this book from Blackwell’s, Amazon, Audible, Bookshop.org, or Libro.fm.