Elizabeth's Reviews > The Whale Library

I suppose it's all right for what it is. The story is interesting and the characters likeable. The stunning artwork elevates the book and endows it with beauty. I enjoyed the experience of reading it. That plot, however. Ooh. I feel like the book couldn't quite decide when to be a fairy tale for adults and when to be realistic, and—given that the premise is a talking whale who apparently never needs to eat, who also has a library inside of her—I found some of the more "realistic" elements of the story to be quite unbelievable, even jarring and out-of-place. This book tried to be a lot of things: atmospheric, beautiful, joyful, funny, and tragic. Unfortunately, they just didn't mesh.