Book Review: The Archived
Media Type: Print Book
Title: The Archived
*Series: The Archived #1
Author: Victoria Schwab
Publisher: Hyperion
Pages: Hardcover; 328
Release Date: January 22, 2013
Source: Library
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Content Screening: Mild Violence; Adult Language
HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart
Recommended to: Readers looking for an amazing adventure with a strong and capable female protagonist.
Add it on: Goodreads / Shelfari / Amazon / B&N
Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.
Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often—violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.
Being a Keeper isn’t just dangerous—it’s a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da’s death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.
In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.
I missed out on Victoria Schwab’s first book, so I knew for a fact that I’d be reading The Archived. After all, I was instantly intrigued by the premise. A place where humans are stored like hard drive copies of themselves? Creepy, yet interesting. I only hoped it would be done as well as the synopsis seemed to promise. Lucky for me this turned out to be everything that I was hoping for! Not only was the concept original, but the execution of it all made this a book I couldn’t get enough of.
