Gainesville has this wonderful book sale hosted by the Friends of the Library once a semester and I never come home from one of these sales with less than 10 books. There can be many hidden gems but for the most part the cheap prices and the amount of book lovers in Gainesville quickly decimate those. This is one of the 17 books I picked up this year, drawn by the cover and the fleeting description of secret book lover society with powers.
This book started rather slowly, with a lot of explanation of powers that took far longer than it should have. The powers themselves were awesome, being able to hear people read silently from afar so they could always hear someone reading the 'no trespassing' sign on the drive up to the farm. Enhancing someone's attention to their reading so you can sneak by unnoticed and they can better study. Some are even able to brainwash, reading a text so forcefully that others actually see it the way the reader sees it.
However, this book has some flaws too. It seemed like three different book disjointedly connected; the lawyer dealing with family issues and trying to excel at his job (reminds me of the movie the proposal with Sandra Bullock), the magical but grounded in reality book society (reminds me of something like the new Jessica Jones series) , and then the secondary faction of the society which was fanciful, ancient, and cult-like (like the Mummy or Indiana Jones). The story was compelling but it took me a long time to read. I was uncomfortable with the shifts and could never fully immerse myself in the book because I felt like I kept getting jarred out of the story.
All in all I will probably give it back to the book sale folks but I'm glad I read it. These powers and the main character will definitely be remembered.
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