Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1) by Rachel Caine

Another book I downloaded probably two years ago that I finally got to this summer while traveling.

I immediately bought/downloaded the second AND third books. 

Maybe this is YA, I don't know anymore.  Dystopian, futuristic, oppressive society notwithstanding, this story borrows a little bit from Harry Potter, a tiny bit of green juice from Game of Thrones, and a smidge from The Hunger Games while remaining mostly original and creative.  Automatons, anyone?

Plus, it IS about BOOKS.  Or, rather, the lack thereof.

In the future, the Great Library of Alexandria controls what everyone may read.  It's like everyone has a blank ipad and the Library controls what you are allowed to read, or even know about.  Over the centuries, power has of course corrupted the leaders of the Library, and so here we go with the rebellion.  What I like is that the rag-tag group of teens that are forced together to train at the Library to be Scholars, High Guarda, or Obscurists locked in a tower, are all very different yet they see the faults of the system and with some well placed allies begin the fight to change the world.  There is travel to different continents, there is referral to history both ancient and more modern and how the centuries long oppression of education has affected everyone and created a huge black market for the buying and selling (and ink-licking, gross) of hardback books.  It is illegal to own them - gasp!!!  But Jess Brightwell, himself from a family of smugglers, bands with his German Genius BFF Thomas, the swashbuckling Dario Santiago who annoys him no end, the tough as nails Welsh girl Glain, the braniac and loyal Khalila, the powerful and valuable young Obscurist Morgan and their unlikely allies - their disgraced Scholar teacher and the Elite High Guarda Captain - to try and improve their world and remove the blight and let the light of education and reading back into the world!!!  Whoo hoooo!!!!  I am currently reading the fourth book, and cannot put it down.  Please let there be a fifth, although I will probably have to wait for that one.....ugh!!!!

PS - I would let my kids read this - they are mature readers at 17 and 15 and listen, if they've read The Hunger Games, this one is fine........