Excellent! I've been looking for more character driven urban fantasy, and Ropa's adventures hit the spot. I love how snarky and annoyed she is, how true blue to family and community, how resilient in the face of grinding poverty. I find her very relatable in our currently crumbling society and I'm interested to learn more about the dystopian background of her world. I'm intrigued by the magical system and delighted by the list of great mbiru players that she drops throughout the book. ( )

A girl who can communicate with the dead makes her living by charging them and their living relations for the privilege of her gift. But when a ghost who can’t pay begs her to find her missing son, she breaks all her rules against charity cases and sets out to investigate the series of mysterious disappearances in the neighborhood. She also gets her friend to sneak her into the members-only secret library where he works (and for which his father is president), and soon realizes both that the two things are related and that she very well may be in over her head.

I had a little trouble staying on top of the plot with this one, but it was still an okay read, if a little scattered. ( )

This wasn't for me and I should have DNF'd.

Contrary to others, I thought the ending was well done… fast paced, interesting, left a bit of a cliffhanger while still giving a sense of being wrapped up. But for much of the book, I was… I don’t know, a little frustrated, a little disinterested. It drags in places and seemed unfocused at times. Some telling that felt unnecessary. So, overall, ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I would read the 2nd, but I don’t need to rush right out to get it. ( )

You know how they say that Indiana Jones and The Lost Ark would've ended exactly the same way even if Indiana Jones wasn't part of the story? Well, that's how I felt about the Library of the Dead.
The premise was nice - a kid who can see and speak with ghosts somehow finds her way to a secret library where she can learn magic. However, if you took out the library from the story it would hardly change. Even Ropa's ability to speak with the dead wasn't a key point (going after Oliver could've just as well been a mission she got from his living grandparents).
Not to mention that the whole story felt like a Doctor Who episode.
Also, I often felt that the author was really trying to sound like a kid and really overdoing it.

Bottom line, it was an ok story but I really doubt I'll read the next one. ( )