Book Review: The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw

While the concept of “dark academia” as a fiction subgenre didn’t really emerge until the mid-2010s, it spawned from popular works as old The Picture of Dorian Grey and Maurice, though Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is largely held to be the true progenitor of the trend. It has only become more and more popular in recent years thanks to social media and therefore has spawned countless books, but I suspect there have been none as dark as Cassandra Khaw’s The Library at Hellebore.

Alessa Li is about to graduate from the Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted, a school that houses those among us who harbor magical gifts of a sort that if left unchecked could easily lead to death and destruction on a massive, possibly planet-ending scale. The school alleges that their curriculum will prepare its students to reenter the world of the commonfolk and coexist with us in peace, leading perfectly ordinary, safe lives. On graduation day however, the true purpose becomes gruesomely clear when the faculty begins to kill and eat her classmates.

Alessa and a few of her “friends” (no one is trustworthy enough at Hellebore to fully earn the title) manage to escape the carnage and lock themselves in the library. The staff is at least temporarily unable to enter, but through the door demands that the group make a violent sacrifice or else be completely eliminated. Reluctant to obey, the teens try to work out a solution, but as time wears on they start to turn on each other and their survival begins to seem less and less likely.

Flashing back and forth between their current predicament and various points in the days leading up to it, Khaw gradually fills us in on how this group found themselves where they are. There isn’t much by way of a mystery to keep things moving along, just a curiosity over how the situation will play out and who will emerge on the other side. Luckily, the writing is gorgeous despite the author’s liberal use of visceral violence (rarely has gore been so beautifully described) and the characters are interesting enough to follow despite none being remotely likable.

There is some clever commentary on the way societies can be so quick to lock away and punish those they find different or threatening as well as the notion that the young are sometimes viewed as mere fodder to “feed” the machine, with little or no regard for their well-being, though none of it is really explored in much depth. Despite the steady stream of teen drama mixed with finely wrought effluvia, the story still seems to drag at times and the action only occasionally generates any suspense. Fans of extreme horror will likely enjoy it enough to finish, but others should probably look for their thrills elsewhere. ★★★