The Book That Broke the World

The Library Trilogy, Book 2

By: Mark Lawrence

Narrated by: Jessica Whittaker

Two people living in a world connected by an immense and mysterious library must fight for those they love in the second book in a new trilogy from the international bestselling author of The Book That Wouldn’t Burn.

The Library spans worlds and times. It touches and joins distant places. It is memory and future. And amid its vastness Evar Eventari both found, and lost, Livira Page.

Evar has been forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover the book she wrote—one which is the only true threat to the library’s existence—if she's to return to her life.

While Evar's journey leads him outside into a world he's never seen, Livira's path will taker her deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.

The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.

©2024 Mark Lawrence (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Mark Lawrence strikes the perfect balance between intellect and heart in this second volume of his Library Trilogy."—Grimdark Magazine

Intrigued by the first book…now in love with the second.

Apparently, I live under a rock, Books, one and two of this series are my first foray into any of Mr. Lawrence’s writing…. I hope I haven’t set myself up for disappointment, due to the excellent world building and complexity (not to mention the action sequences, occasionally snarky and wonderfully quirky sense of humor) of this series so far.
I’m sure there are more of this authors works in my very near future.
My only complaint is totally because I am an American who thinks everybody sounds like me… I believe the author uses European/UK pronunciation and sometimes it just threw me off. But really, that’s probably more on me than it is the narrator! I did enjoy her overall performance.
Overall 11/10… I am already looking forward to re-listening to the first two books just prior to book 3 coming out.

Loved it

I loved the first book and the second one i gave it 4 stars just because it was a bit slow and I really didnt like the new characters

A Great Listen

I'll start with the bad: this wasn't as good as the first book. This felt like a middle book to me; some necessary expansion of the world and characters leading into the final book. But it didn't get its hooks as deep into me as the first, and was just "good" until bringing it together in the end. Of course, I still really enjoyed it, needed to know what happened, and can't wait for the next step. It's a testament to how much I liked the first book that this book fell short and was still a 5-star book. So if the author could just use the exchange to influence the first book and make it worse, this one might look better? In all seriousness, definitely my favorite world and concept from Mr. Lawrence so far.

Love Mark Lawrence

It’s a great seres. Narrator in general is great, but her continuos mispronunciation of “automaton” drove me crazy.

Repetitive/Long/Cannibalism

I liked the 1st book because it was original. This one was way too long and repetitive. The performance was good, but the actual content and the story line was poor. I think the author tried to stretch it out. It was way too violent for me, going into cannibalism just to introduce a new element to the story line.
It was a wasted credit. If you enjoyed the 1st book, run from the sequel.

review

The Book That Broke the World by Mark Lawrence

4.75 ⭐

Second installment of The Library Trilogy.

Lawrence is utilizing the mechanism and the library and the ideas of how stories travel, manifest. Some authors will create a great idea, top notch and yet they only explore it so far as it allows them to tell the love story. If you can take away all aspects of fantasy out of the story and then it becomes a modern fiction, you are not writing fantasy. We don't have to worry about that with Mark Lawrence.

It's interesting that he's exploring interspecies relations. I know Ice Planet Barbarians got a whole lot of flack for that but he doesn't seem to be suffering the same fate. Dare I say, the alien smut walked so Mark Lawrence could run? 🤣🤣🤣 I'm just kidding. Octavia Butler explored amicable interspecies, reproduction thoroughly, decades ago.
I really enjoy the exercise of revenge, whether over an instant or lifetimes.

Overall, I don't know if I felt more distracted. Just go around or if I just wasn't as easily engaged, but that's the only reason I'm ticking off a quarter of a star. I think this is a fantastic read, I'll look forward to doing a reread once the whole trilogy comes out.

Well Written Original Ideas

Well crafted and literate with good character development. I read a lot and find that many writers don’t have the skill to tell a good story. Too often I find mistakes in grammar or word choice, misquotes of common sayings, or plain factual errors which automatically take me out of the story.

Brilliant

I was so excited for this book. I could live in this world and get lost in the story. There’s so much to explore. I look forward to what comes next.

Mid

Pretty mid nothing really wowed me. Last half of the book dragged and was confusing.

Really a 3.75 of Five star Rating

This book was challenging due to timeline shifts in the plot that weren't always easy to follow. The characters also didn't really seem evolve a lot in this second book int the Library Series. Once the Lawrence (author) gives you a brief recap of where book 1 left off, he throws you into the chaos of book 2.
I'm not sure abut those that read this book before me, but it took me a beat to get my bearings on what was going on. It took me a minute but once I did, I found my enjoyment of the book again. The characters especially secondary ones almost overtake the main two protagonists (Evar & LIvira) development.
While the plot was adventurous and romance between the Evar & Livira end up being the main drivers, I found I actually liked development of Celcha and her POV the most.
The ending was a bit abrupt and I'm not sure how I'll feel about the conclusion of this trilogy based on the end of this second book.