The Archived by Victoria Schwab

The Archived
  by Victoria Schwab

5/5 stars on Goodreads

90%

Recommended: if you like mystery and ghost stories I guess!

Review:

The Archived by Victoria Schwab is a story about a girl named Mackenzie, who moves into this old hotel with her parents. The Conronado hotel is ridiculously old, and is falling apart, but Kenzie's mom has decided to make the run down coffee shop in the lobby her newest 'project'. And we can't blame her for chasing pipe dreams. Kenzie's little brother, Ben, was killed recently by a hit and run driver, and her mother hasn't been the same since.


Neither has Kenzie, but she has some other fish to fry. When Kenzie's grandpa passed away, he handed over a very special task to her: a keeper for the archive. The archive is basically a library for bodies and souls. When someone dies, they are shelved in the archive, and they become a History. Sometimes, Histories awake, and it's up to the keepers to return them to the archive, before they slip into the real world. Kenzie is about to become really busy, as the Connorado uncovers a series of unsettled Histories. 

The idea of the archive was SO interesting. The whole principle of the doors was reminiscent of The Adjustment Bureau, with Matt Daemon. (((And I really like that movie))) In The Adjustment Bureau, the people who work in the bureau can travel through doors by wearing certain hats, and turning the handle the other way. It's cool, and the doors in the archive kind of reminded me of that. All the different aspects, from the keepers, to the crew, to the librarians were interesting. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to be a librarian, but we figure that out eventually....


*SPOILERS AHEAD*

When Kenzie is first introduce to Wesley Ayers, aka guy-liner, I was immediately drawn to his really elusive personality. I knew he was going to be a keeper, because he was standing right in front of a door when she first sees him. He was pretty sneaky, but it was good for Kenzie to have someone to talk about the archive with. She said it felt so foreign to her to be completely honest with people, and that was sad. I thought there would be an obvious romantic element between the two of them, but he only just kissed her that one time to steal her memories.... So I wonder what's up with that.

Owen Christopher Clarke was a cool character, but he weird-ed me out a lot. Especially with the 'relationship' between him and Kenzie for a while. That was kind of creepy. He definitely pulled all the right strings and pushed all the right buttons with Kenzie though, and he made her trust him. Which was BAD. I knew something was up with him the second she meets him, and he doesn't slip, but I didn't know that he would be a keeper. At the end, when he takes Kenzie's crew key and vanishes into the oblivion, we all know he isn't really gone. The only way out is with a crew key, and guess who has a crew key.

The tie in where the librarians are actually dead keepers/crew members makes a lot of sense. Who would give up their life to stay in the archive forever? But, being given the chance to get you life BACK to stay in the archive forever, that's a pretty decent gig. The archive is really really secretive, and if we've all learned anything from books, it's that secrets are dangerous. Very dangerous. So I think that the archive's shell is going to be cracked wide open in The Unbound.

I'm definitely looking forward to continuing on with this series, but I'm not going to right away. Eventually I will, but I don't feel a rush to read the next book right this second. I'm curious to see where this story goes.