Cassandra Khaw is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. I don’t know their specific writing approach, but everything of theirs is dripping with intentional vision that permeates down to the metaphors and similes. Theme isn’t just some intangible “je ne sais quoi” in their hands, but the mycorrhizal tendrils that support the structure of the book. The Library at Hellebore is no different, delivering on a tale of gory consumption in the dark halls of a magic university.
Hellebore is no ordinary institution. After the reintroduction of powerful magic into the wider world, a place to school the more powerfully gifted, the anti-christs and ragnoroks, became necessary. Alessa is counted amongst that group, but unlike the majority of students at Hellebore, she didn’t choose to be there. One day, she woke up, having been kidnapped and chosen by the professors to be redeemed along with the rest of them. But on graduation day, the faculty turns on the students, going on a feeding frenzy. Only eight of the students survive by retreating to the library. Under the door, an ultimatum slips through: sacrifice one specific student, and half of the rest will survive.
The story is split into two-ish timelines. There are the “Before” chapters, flashbacks to Alessa’s interactions with the various students she is trapped in the library with. These are not in chronological order, as far as I can tell, and whip around, giving context to the other timeline, the present. These chapters are more chronological, revealing the darker secrets about the institution of Hellebore and its intentions for its students. Both timelines are intertwined in a delicate dance that, if you’re not paying attention, will come off as confusing. I struggled with it a little at first, but once I slowed down to take it in, chapter by chapter, the erratic structure fell away and I slipped into the book’s dark embrace. The “Before” chapters were particularly “fun” as you get to know powers and positions the differing students hold within society, and within Hellebore’s own social context. And with how they are positioned against the present timeline, they just go together like peanut butter and jelly.
It is genuinely hard not to gush about The Library at Hellebore. Khaw’s grasp on language continues to frighten me. The sentences are dense, literally dripping with meaning. I rarely highlight turns of phrase that stand out so vividly, but Library is replete with them. They are so precise that they feel like they’ve been workshopped over hours. But they happen so often, and so easily fit within everything else, that it feels natural. I’ve noticed this before in their writing, but Khaw makes it so easy to see what they are curious about by paying attention to their metaphors. Khaw’s choices show a mastery of context and create new dimensions in Hellebore’s themes. Given that the story is told from the protagonist’s perspective, it also just leans into how they see the world. It makes for a challenging reading experience when it comes to one’s own perceptions about what is happening.
Alessa herself is a dark delight. She has one goal, and that is to escape Hellebore. It doesn’t matter what it takes or who she has to align herself with. Despite the many protestations from her peers that it’s not worth it or possible, she persists. It creates friction in the earlier sections that slowly becomes a burning ember, igniting throughout the present timeline. Alessa has a pretty negative outlook on life, pushing those away from her who claim to want to help, in favor of a DIY self-preservation that everyone else is a sucker for not following. I was particularly thrown off by the lack of edginess that would normally creep up on a character like her. She’s sardonic and an asshole to everyone around her. I think it works because the rest of the characters all fall on the spectrum between innocent saint and unrelenting demon in grounded and tragic ways. They are imprisoned and alienated by their fates as world-enders or sacrificial lambs.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the book really goes for it in the gore department. I’ve already mentioned that Khaw is a great writer, but they really know how to highlight the disgusting nature of things. How juicy someone’s flesh might be, or the sound one makes when being torn in half. It’s not my highest priority in media, but when it so neatly fits into everything else, and is also just really viscerally written, it makes my brain a tad too happy.
The twisted menagerie of occult creations on display within The Library at Hellebore is just plain fun. You have the eighth in line to Satan’s throne, Adam. The death worker the faculty wants sacrificed. A man with a portal inside his body to another dimension. A few sacrificial lambs, some who are reborn again and again, while others serve to live a singular life, whose end promises bounty. I could go on and on about the different ways the occult is expressed in the book, but that’s part of the fun. I appreciated the fact that this was a smorgasbord of unearthly delights as well because it sharpened the individual characters and the tensions inherent to their relationships and proximity towards one another. They fit into their archetype with slight variations to make them feel relevant to Alessa’s narrative needs. It makes them easy to track as the reader switches between timelines.
It also frees up the book to focus on the various themes surrounding academia, the occult, and consumption (something they touch on in The Salt Grows Heavy). Something I’ve always enjoyed about Khaw’s novels is that they pull in so many ideas to add nuance and texture to themes that could be easily simplified. For instance, Hellebore looks at the academy as an institution and the historical baggage associated with formalized education. Especially when it comes to those marginalized from society. Alessa’s kidnapping to turn her into a productive member of society mirrors the schools for indigenous folks in North America. The literal eating of these gifted, though dangerous, children highlights the way work is produced in universities as graduate and PHD students perform research under an advisor who could determine how much credit they deserve. It can also be seen as a form of pacification since several movements in the modern era have spawned from student protests. We see how these institutions fail to protect their students, even calling in police to handle peaceful occupations, feeding them to the wolves in order to protect their reputation or endowments. This all boils down to “aren’t these institutions and their history a little fucked up?” suggesting an almost occult, ritualistic sacrifice of the young to maintain control. By using the whole genre, instead of a single idea within it, Hellebore questions the use of Dark Academia as a classification. It doesn’t dismantle it or put it down. It accepts that it exists and tries to bring a sense of immediacy to it beyond “dark libraries are cool,” which is what has always sort of put me off.
If you’re looking for some spooky fun to round out your autumn as you return to school, or reminisce about your times in college, you should be picking up The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw.
Rating: The Library At Hellebore – Maintains its GPA for a full ride.
-Alex
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
