MAD Librarian is women¿s crime humor that reads like Breaking Bad: The Library Edition. When the city cuts off funding for her library, To keep her library alive, Serenity Hammer embezzles from a neglected city fund, which turns out to be the conduit for all state political corruption. Now she has all the money she needs to build the library her city deserves¿if she can do it fast and stay … alive. Half of all profit from MAD Librarian will go to the MAD Librarian Fund for librarians (madlibrarian.org.)
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Loved the topic, terrific plot and characters, stayed up too late reading!!
Really enjoyed reading this book but a little upset about the ending. All in all, it was a fun book to read.
This book will resonate with anyone who loves books and libraries!!
Who says crime doesn’t pay — it certainly did in this story. It really makes you think about the end justifying the means. At first I was mad about the reaction of her husband, but as I thought more about it, I came to realize he was the hero of the story, because he was the only one to remain true to his ideals. The plot was definitely different and twistedly funny.
OK book, you had me at MAD. My name may be Madelon, but people have called me Mad for a very long time. I even sign my email with “Love, Mad” and a disclaimer “I sign my email “Love,” because Mad is my name, not my state of mind.” Then there is that librarian word. Librarians are keepers of books, and, if there’s one thing I love, its books! I figured with a name like MAD LIBRARIAN, this book was right up my alley. I was right!
I have often found that I get more information on dicey subjects from a book of fiction than from a book of fact. Is there really anything more dicey than government? I’m saying from small town government moving all the way to the top. Then there are the various departments, and surely, the library is a department well worth its budget.
We hear so much these days about corruption in high places that it makes me wonder what about corruption lower down the food chain. How about a little dark money in a small town in Alabama? Or, any other state in this here U.S. of A.
Guillebeau deals with some of today’s most pressing economic issues, like getting a job, finding daycare for your children so you can get a job, and writing a resume to present at that all important job interview. He does it with brash good humor and the ‘that I can do’ attitude we like to think we all have.
There is no better way to get a point across than with well-written satire. Where else would you find a head librarian named Serenity, who isn’t, with two staff librarians called Doom and Joy, who aren’t. All they want to do is spread knowledge and help people while the town council keeps slashing their budget. Sound familiar?
I started my review out by saying the book was a 5-star read before I had read paragraph one. When I got to the last page, my initial opinion had not changed. In fact, I enjoyed reading this book so much that I would give it a 7 or 8 on the 5-star scale for content, writing and coherence. Some books jump off the virtual shelf and beg to be read. MAD LIBRARIAN is just such a book.
Information is power. Librarians are the keepers of information. If information needs to be found, they can do the research. They can find it. So, you may come to the same conclusion I did after reading this book. Someday librarians will take over the world!
Great page turner! Has a surprise on each page.
Not worth my while—didn’t finish.
Peripheral characters are somewhat one dimensional.
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Carl Sagan said we are all made of stardust. She was made of book dust.
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“We’ve all put up with these problems for too long. No one’s been mad enough before. Pun intended.”
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I didn’t know what to expect from this one – after downloading the galley, I looked up other reviews to see what the buzz was on this one (I do that from time to time, out of curiosity). WOW. People do NOT seem to like this book – the rather vituperative reviews and low stars really surprised me… Don’t get me wrong – there are some issues that I had with it as well. The story is rather extreme – excessive corruption and sexism, exceedingly polarizing characters, wild-eyed pessimism (and, by the end, optimism), too-good (and -bad) to-be-true characters… The plot is wildly implausible. The language is, at times, hyperbolic and the drama, overdrawn.
BUT IT IS SATIRE. And that’s what satire does…
I think that reading this as a gen fic narrative, each word read as a ringingly true statement about the world as it is, is the problem. If you read it like true fiction (you know what I mean), you’d probably be disappointed or disgusted or eye-rollingly turned off. But if you read it as a satirical riff on the insanity of the modern world, a world which emphasizes flash over substance at entirely too many turns and which seems to reward sneaky, corrupt, idiots at the expense of The Good, then I think it all falls into place quite nicely. For goodness’ sakes, even the characters names were obviously satirically derived – even aging hippies wouldn’t honestly name their daughter Serenity Sweetblossom, would they?? And Amanda Doom?? The MAD itself?? And read the dedication – clearly Guillebeau has an axe to grind tale, and it’s an important and undervalued one, which is well served by the snarky over-the-top style he adopted to tell it. Yes, I rolled my eyes a few times. Yes, I occasionally skimmed a page that felt overdone. But all in all, the premise and delivery were very well aligned, and I enjoyed reading this one.
I for one applaud what he is trying to accomplish with this book. The donations to the MAD Librarian Fund are a brilliant idea, and I hope that the cause is picked up by some of the very large corporate organizations he so derides. His vision for what a knowledge- and book-based town could truly accomplish is a marvelous one, and I think there’s more than wisdom hidden in the MAD’s structure than is immediately apparent. Here’s hoping someone with the resources to actually discover that wisdom stumbles upon a kernel of it…
My review copy was provided by NetGalley.