Book Review: The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections - Eva Jurczyk

I did not care for this book at all. It is a dreary crime novel where - shock! horror! - someone has stolen a book. And, yes, it is the obvious suspect.

Much like The Martian Contingency I found the lead character profoundly irritating. A miserable protagonist who is completely ineffectual and refuses to take even the most minor of actions. Her self-loathing drips off the page and smothers any character development.

At various points she's "Ashamed, embarrassed, disgusted with herself" or regards anything she does as "the useless action of a helpless woman" and reflects that "She had never been beautiful." It is a chore to be inside her head. I don't expect to empathise with every literary protagonist, but there's hardly anything about this woman which isn't driven by her neuroses - it felt like I was an unwilling voyeur in a psychotherapy session.

The prose was plodding and there are some excruciating attempts at exposition. After the whodunnit is revealed (literally the only person who it could be) the book inexplicably carries on for a few more chapters.