The Absolute Book

Although I found the book itself beautifully written, and enchanting for its beauty, it was hard to follow. It was a winding story with characters that always felt removed from you, no matter how familiar you should or could have become with them. I think this might be one of those books that either grabs you immediately or you just don't engage with.
The narrator was beautiful and gave her all to the characters she was voicing.

Decades ago, Taryn’s sister was murdered. Now a successful author, the past continues to haunt Taryn.

The Absolute Book is an absolute epic. It journeys from this world to others, referencing the myths of many cultures. We meet the Sidhe and talking ravens. And we follow the mystery of an ancient scroll box known as the Firestarter. Threaded through it all is a love of books, storytelling and language.

This was my second reading of the book. It is not the easiest to follow, as it jumps back and forth spatially and temporally. Some sections are a little flabby. It is a testament to the originality of the story, that I came back to it.

Given this is a story about an Englishwoman, the use of Americanisms, eg. cell phone, grates.

This audiobook version is well-performed. The narrator inhabits each of the various characters.

Hugely imaginative, hard to capture.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for the ARC.

This is a deep, complex and enigmatic book that spans many worlds. It's an epic and intriguing blend of mystery and magical realism that throws in a fantastic mix of various mythologies.
I can tell that Elizabeth Knox put lots of time, effort and research into creating this beautifully written piece of prose. But, I'm afraid she lost me at points. I had to really concentrate to follow the story, or should I say intertwining stories, and felt like I was missing things even after rewinding bits on my audiobook copy. Maybe if there were slightly fewer plots and folklores to focus on, I would have fared better. I would really like to read the book within this book, The Feverish Library, though.
Narrator notes: Listening to Anne Marie Duff was great. I loved her range of accents for the characters and it was so pleasurable and soothing to hear her voice for over 18 hours. I will definitely be trying to find more audiobooks narrated by her.
On narration alone, I would give 5 stars. But unfortunately, the actual book was not as spellbinding as I thought it would be.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this title in exchange for a honest review.

This is such a brilliant story full of mystery and folklore and magic.

But it’s so difficult to follow on audio! The jumps between places and times weren’t well enough marked on the audio making it confusing. I got lost and rewound several times!

Having said that, the narration is great and I would love to listen to more audiobooks read by this narrator!

I think this is one that would work better in print for me!

Firstly I want to start this review by stating that I am new to the fantasy genre and therefore my thoughts may be impacted by this. Overall I did enjoy this audiobook but don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much if I had been reading a physical copy.

The book starts off with a girl suffering from her sisters' murder and through grief she writes a book about lost libraries and banned and burned books which create a portal to step into a magical fantasy world that was reminiscent of Narnia or something Pullman-esque. - this concept I loved and you were transported to new countries and continents which was particularly fun right now.

The narrative transitions between real and fantasy which at times was a little hard to follow, I don't know whether this was due to me listening to it but it did come across as static at times rather than fully flowing between the two. At 650 pages, I also deemed it to have a heavy focus on description and then important information sometimes seemed to be skipped over.

Overall a really good concept and I'm sure many people are going to get completely lost in the pages of this book. I'll still recommend it to fantasy-loving customers!

Wow! If you love big books with many layers this is the perfect book for you to escape. I listened to this via audiobook. I enjoyed the narrator. It's a mixed bag of genres from murder/mystery to fantasy. I had heard good things about this book and was eager to listen. This story is really deep and complex and sometimes went totally over my head! But on the whole I enjoyed it.

I throughly enjoyed this book. Full of magic, drama and wonder, I know this will be a world I return to again and again.
Honestly, I'm not sure what I can say about it without ruining the story but seriously, READ IT!
The narration was gorgeous, I could listen to that voice all day!

This book was most certainly unique. I have never read a book quite like it, although I do feel it would be perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke's novels. It had that feel to it. It entwines different genres, starting out as a murder mystery and progresses into a fantasy novel, I quite liked how Knox weived the genres together, which also created a fairytale style in writing.

I feel this book is one you need to take your time on, it is complex and should be savoured not rushed. Overall, I did enjoy it.

If you liked Good Omens then you will enjoy this book. The narration was excellent and helped at beginning to work out who is who, took me a nearly half of way to get into it and almost gave up. Some really funny parts and then strange things happen which I had to read again. The story was hard to follow as it jumped around through time and across continents and lacked a plot. The characters were interesting and easier to understand than the story itself. I think I need to read the book again to truly understand it. thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook.