The Archived by Victoria Schwab
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this as part of the #SchwabReadalong organised over Twitter/Booktube (twitter.com/schwabreadalong) and this was the first book of the schedule. I haven’t read Schwab before but have seen her pop up with both her YA and adult fantasy books as a recommended author for me quite a few times so I decided now’s as good a time as any!

The Archived was a good story exploring ideas of death, grieving, family, friendships and desire from the perspective of a 16 year old. The overall concept of a supernatural style library that catalogues the dead who in turn have a tendency to get up and wander off is one I’ve seen done elsewhere, nevertheless this book does a good job at exploring the idea.

It is well written for the target audience (YA) however I found some of it frustratingly simple at times; I also found myself getting annoyed at some of the decisions the characters were making and some of the martial expertise of the 16 year old protagonist seemed a little far-fetched. It was a good story but I am happy with leaving it at just The Archived personally, as opposed to reading the 2nd book.

This was my 43rd book of 2020.