Imagine you could erase your grief.
Imagine you could forget your pain.
Imagine you could hide a secret.
Forever.
Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice – but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.
He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, he can help. If there’s something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible.
In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of books – and memories – are meticulously stored and recorded.
Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.
WARNING: No major spoilers revealed, just small details
I was immediately drawn to this book by Bridget Collins as soon as I saw it, and I hadn’t even made it five steps into the bookstore, at that point. This novel is a beautiful, spellbinding story, and so unique to what I have ever come across before. Set in the 1800’s – although this is never specifically stated – books are not viewed as we see them now; they are seen as awful and shameful objects that should never be read and should be kept hidden, for they are memories people wish to forget. Emmett, a young farmer boy is recovering from a mysterious illness that has left him weak. His family treat him like a disgrace which he doesn’t fully understand, and he is left in a constant state of disassociation – feeling responsible for a wrong he doesn’t remember making and he wont be forgiven for. One day he is summoned to begin an apprenticeship with the local Bookbinder.
In the beginning I felt that the story was a little slow paced, however I think the fact that I was extremely intrigued by Emmett’s illness, and Collins’s fascinating idea of memory binding, kept me from putting the book down. Looking back at the rest of the novel, I now see it as an important section of the book to comprehend what exactly a Bookbinder was and what they do, introduce some very important characters with strange behaviours, and show the readers the kind of people that seek a Bookbinder out and the kind of memories they wish to forget. ‘We take memories and bind them. Whatever people can’t bear to remember. Whatever they can’t live with. We take those memories and put them where they can’t do anymore harm. That’s all books are.’
I won’t reveal any plot points, and I hope no one else has ruined them for you either, however I will tell you that it is definitely for the romantics of the world. In no way does it appear like a romance from reading the blurb, but this theme covers at least half of the book. I didn’t really want to tell you this, because I think that is part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much; for the surprise storyline and hidden romance that I definitely didn’t see coming. But, if I didn’t mention it then I wouldn’t have much to say to convince you to read this book! I’ve noticed a lot of people dislike the fact that a ‘major plot point’ was revealed in the blurb, which doesn’t actually occur until page 161, ‘Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.’ This didn’t bother me at all. In fact, it was that specific sentence which made me commit to buying the book in the first place. It is the only piece of information revealed that grabs your attention on the burb. Yes, the idea of the world is unique and not something I have ever come across before, but I wasn’t exactly prepared to pay £12.99 on a novel that lacked excitement and might just bore me into an early grave. The novel had to have something in the blurb that made people want to read it, so the publishing house made the decision to sacrifice this information in order to hide a much bigger plot twist (you’ll have to read it if you want to find out). I think that if I had known about this ‘secret plot twist’ beforehand, I wouldn’t have had such an emotional reaction and it would have lacked the suspense and intensity, so
Make no mistake, this is a fantasy novel. It’s just not the typical fantasy we are used to, with mystical creatures and fantastical lands. Collins’s idea is so different and set in a world very similar to ours that you can actually imagine bookbinding to be plausible. The main focus is the characters rather than world building. It is only the idea of bookbinding which needs to be explored, but we as readers can fill in the rest; for me I got a Pride and Prejudice vibe, so just rolled with that when imagining the setting. I loved that the protagonist, Emmett, wasn’t 100% good, could do no wrong, with morals as high as the Eiffel tower, like most heroes in novels tend to be. He made mistakes and bad choices, acting and thinking more like a human in the real world than any other character I have met. ‘I hope you have nightmares about drowning.’ You connect so much more with the character because he is more relatable, with other wants and interests other than taking the moral high ground all the time.
There are some themes of abuse and violence, as there are people who use bookbinding as a way to get away with their crimes and truly terrible actions. It makes you wonder what humans would actually be like if we could choose to forget the bad things that happen to us? And what ways would we end up using this ability against someone?
I recommend this book for lovers of fantasy and romance, and if you are looking for an out-of-the-box fictional world to escape into.
The Adventurer 