Review of the Library Thief by Kuchenga Shenjé

Title: The Library Thief

Author: Kuchenga Shenjé

Publication date: 2024

Format: Paperback, 392 pages

This review is hard for me. I picked this book up on holiday, and I'm really glad I did because I enjoyed reading it. However, though I genuinely like the book, I don't love it. This impacted my ability to write a more detailed review. But still, I chipped away at it, and here it is.

I'm not familiar with gothic genre literature, but I have read plenty of historical romance, where there are tons of black and mixed race characters, but their experiences are not explored, just used as part of the setting, and the setting itself is taken as a given, a history that everyone is assumed to know. The Library Thief takes a stereotypical trope of a young woman going to an isolated country home with a dangerous secret, and refreshes it by giving the characters more context from history. The back cover blurb starts with "Some secrets are too scandalous to conceal" and that applies to the multiple secrets in the story, but also the secrets that have fallen out or been excluded from conventional history.

It's clear from the start that you can't take things at face value. The mansion's first impression is "a grand house, the likes of which I had only really seen on biscuit tins in the windows of Manchester's new department stores" but after the heroine enters just a page later: "the door chuffed itself closed behind us with a low groan... It gave the sense of being sealed into the house somehow- not being able to see where one could escape." All the characters have secrets, and part of the enjoyment in reading is just finding out these secrets. 

What I loved

The book has a very specific setting- Lancashire, 1896, with trips to Liverpool. I've been on those train lines! Okay, part of why I liked the setting is just because of where I live, but I did think it was well described. Also, for years I have been trying to write a fantasy novel with a similar setting, so seeing it done so well is really useful for me.

Florence is a wonderful imperfect heroine. The story is from her perspective, and Shenjé presents her personality so well. She's smart and independent, and also ignorant and vulnerable; a mix of traits that makes the character feel like a real person. Her curiosity, not just about the central mystery but also about everything in her world, is endearing. Seeing her deal with the things around her, I built up a lot of love for the character. 

What I didn't get

While reading, I really wanted some sort of conventionally happy ending, like a romance would deliver. Perhaps that is a crucial difference between gothic and romance. The ending did really make me think about why I wanted that sort of happy ending, and how the less sappy ending could be seen as the happy one, the one the characters would see as better for them than a conventional happy ending. Certainly if Shenjé follows up with a sequel, following Florence's experiences in Jamaica, I would be totally down for it, no matter what genre or ending.

There is a point where a character just explains all the background mystery, and it feels like an exposition dump. I think it fits with the "some secrets are too scandalous to conceal" theme, but it felt a bit dry, or anti-climatic, when the mystery of Lady Penelope's death was explained. Perhaps it was just the register that character had.

Would I recommend

Yes. I really liked how Shenjé took a different perspective on the genre and made something fresh, but still within the genre. In the author's note, Shenjé clearly states that her novel "is intended to be an antidote to the intentional erasure of the Victorian colonial project." Fiction with historical settings does not have to perpetuate racism and homophobia. The Library Thief is not a preachy book. Even if you have no interest in exploring decolonizing ideas, this book is still going to be a good read. It shows, rather than tells, how genre fiction can broaden its perspective on the past, and still remain readable, engaging, and within the genres that so many readers love. And it is a real page turner, great for a holiday read.