A nonstop, gruesome, visceral ride. Cassandra Khaw plunges us into a dark and violent world, set within the eerie walls of a mysterious school for students with various apocalyptic-level powers and abilities.
The story unravels rapidly in a whirlwind of blood and chaos. It's disturbing, stylish and relentlessly intense, with a disorienting depth thanks to it's split timelines. But it's not just horror - beneath the carnage lies a surprising emotional depth as we see how the characters connect with each other amid the chaos, and in events leading up to it.
Khaw's prose is sharp and evocative, entwining horror with a strange, aching beauty. There were moments I had to make use of my e-reader's dictionary, and I loved that she didn't hold back on the vocabulary as it suited the theming perfectly and enriched my experience.

If there is any flaw to be picked at - it's that the novel is overstuffed. The lore, setting, and characters all beg for deeper exploration, and at times the narrative strains under the weight of everything that is jammed into the one standalone. The world offers so much - it feels like we're only seeing the tip of a blood-soaked iceberg, and I for one crave more!

A horror that is both brutal and tender, The Library at Hellebore is a must read for fans of dark academia, body horror and emotionally layered storytelling - but be warned, it does not pull its punches when it comes to gore.

Huge thank you to Titan for this ARC - I cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy for my shelves!

I really liked the idea of this book, but unfortunately the execution didn’t work for me. The whole thing felt kind of underdeveloped. I never fully understood what each character’s powers were or how they were supposed to work, and that lack of clarity made it hard to stay invested, which in turn, led to the dual timelines becoming confusing - maybe it was just my lack of understanding but it felt like there wasn’t enough distinction between them, which made the reading experience feel clunky and disjointed. More than once, I found myself halfway through a chapter and having to remind myself if it was the past or the present.

2.5 stars rounded up. I really wanted to love this book, it had a lot of potential but it just didn't really come together for me.

Not really for me. Just didn't hook me in like I wanted it to.
I liked the writing style though, I think the themes were maybe just not to my taste!

Unfortunately this book is simply not for me and I need to steer clear of dark fantasy/acedemia in the future.
That being said I believe many will love this book as its certainly not without its redeeming traits.

Thankyou Netgalley and Titan Books for this eARC!

I was super excited for this book and it did not dissapoint. I was honestly really confused at times, but when I realised just how unreliable our narrator was it made more sense.

This is a book that really is eat or be eaten, and is filled with many different types of... people... that were all really interesting. I almost wish this book had been a little longer just to get more of a sense of who everyone truly was. It is filled with body horror and gore which I loved, and I think it was just the right amount. The narration does jump around between chapters which did take some getting used too.

The only downside I found with this book, was that it uses a lot of BIG words that I did have to google but that could just be a me problem.

I would definitely read this again, and am excited to pick up some of Cassandra's other works.

Honestly, this book was a lot! I probably should have explored the author's previous work and the genre in more detail as the read of the blurb to me sounded like I was on more of a dark fantasy, dark academia path than a gore and horror fantasy one. I read some horror here and there, but it's often more psychological, whereas this was a lot more gory!

Alessa Li is a student at Hellebore, an institute for world-eaters and apocalypse-makers, but she didn't enroll there by choice - she was kidnapped and woke up there. The story starts with a bloodbath and continues much in that way, as you might expect from a school for monsters! The students are promised redemption and acceptance after graduation, but in reality, we quickly discover that instead the faculty turns on them and devours them, quite literally. Alessa and a group of classmates manage to flee to the library where they barricade themselves in.

One thing I did really like about it was the narration style that flits between the present, the days where the students are stuck in the library and fighting for survival, and the "before", which is non-linear most of the time. It adds to the nightmarish effect of never quite knowing where you stand and what's going to happen next, but it also serves to make the present make more sense knowing how they ended up there.

I also enjoyed the diversity of the characters - we had a range of racial backgrounds, which weren't just used as token characters but had fully fleshed out (lol) backstories that added context to the narrative. There were also genderfluid characters that identified differently in gender depending on the moment and non-binary characters. I'm not overly familiar with this genre, but I imagine it's not common to see such a range of characters in it and I'm glad to see it!

The characters themselves are very interesting, as alongside their monstrous traits, you've also got all the complexities you'd expect to find in normal "humans" thrown together in situations like this. Also I loved the character of Rowan - he gave me Ridoc from Fourth Wing vibes.

The writing, the characters and the setting were great - I'd have loved to know more about the school itself too, I think it would be very interesting, but I get that's not what this book was about. It only falls on the star rating because the level of gore wasn't for me, and that's on my own head, not the author's!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publishers for a review copy of this book.

I have to admit this could arguably be the first proper horror book I’ve ever read. It had such an interesting premise but I did find it very confusing to read. I think part of it was it took until most of the way through the book before I felt like I even wanted to root for the characters.

I did really enjoy the more lyrical and dense writing here though it may not appeal to some, I also enjoyed the non linear storytelling but I feel like we could have been eased into it a bit more.

This was difficult to rate I think because the body horror element was so visceral and it’s the first book of this type that I’ve read.

Very strong premise with a ton of potential but it was so very confusing! I have read another book from this author and I wanted to give it another chance. The writing is very difficult, I use the sentence surrounding certain words to kind of navigate what they mean but I should not have to use the kindle dictionary that often lol. It doesn’t have to be so difficult. I think the writing just isn’t for me but my did I try. Only reason the previous worked better was it was a singular character if I recall and short, very straight forward. This was a mountain compared to that mole hill. The last 30% really picks up everything and throws it at you but I was completely lost by that point if I’m being honest. Rewinding so often it was a bit much. I hear the audio is way better to grasp maybe I will give that a go on the re read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ebook in exchange of a review!

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for the advance reader copy.

The concept of this book sounded very interesting and I was even more interested when it came up as a possible pick for a subscription box.
Unfortunately I was and still am very confused and not too sure where the story was going.

I like non linear storytelling but found that there wasn’t enough information about the characters to make me root for them.
The book reads like a thesaurus was thrown at it and there was a word count needed and that also made reading a task.

Overall I imagine people will enjoy this but personally it didn’t hit the mark for me.

I was really looking forward to reading this one with the promise of dark academia, students vs faculty vibes. It’s delivers on those themes, being more horror-academia with lots of body horror and really gruesome scenes plus the creature parts of the students. It left me with a very “ewwy” feeling after reading it and although I didn’t have full body shudders, it definitely repulsed me. Was that the intention? If so, it delivered.

The writing style was poetic and lyrical, with several words that I needed to look up (personally, I don’t mind that and I haven’t had to do that since I was a teenager!)

This is a hard one to rate as I can’t get past how repulsed I am by the body horror aspect of it. The story is good, a bit confusing at times, and I felt a lack of rapport between the characters and felt like their time together wasn’t explored enough to make me care about any of them. So overall, I’m left repulsed, detached and asking wtf?! If that’s the intended result then job well done!

I still remember thinking those girls at St Trinian's were rather naughty, and more recently getting excited about all the wizardry in the classrooms at Hogwarts. Neither experience prepared me for the bloodbath within Hellebore.
Hellebore is an academy full of darkness and decay. Death lurks in every corner but even death is not an escape from the dark horrors that permeate almost every page.
The author takes the horror genre beyond its normal boundaries with graphic visions of decaying flesh and monsters devouring monsters. Here are creatures of the damned which are intended to scare and most certainly do.
But amongst all the grisly grotesqueness and the stark horrors there are still moments of tenderness and even love, and throughout the story I found myself with empathy for the loneliness of these forlorn characters: unfriended, afeared, seeking an escape that even death cannot promise.
This is a book full of shivers seeking brave-hearted readers.

Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me an e-ARC via NetGalley! That has not influenced this review and all opinions are my own.

This book is the embodiment (excuse the pun) of body horror. The descriptions are incredibly detailed which means the reader is very clearly able to create a picture in their mind. There’s blood, entrails, and many many eyes and legs. This is probably the first time I’ve read a book and literally cringed.

I *love* an unreliable narrator. Alessa is unreliable, grotesque, rude, and incredibly unhinged in the best way. She is chaos on legs and I love that she leaves death and destruction in her path. The dual timelines are really helpful at giving us background context and there is some building of relationships between characters. I would have liked a bit more of the dark academia side, but that’s just me being picky!
There were a few twists that the reader didn’t expect, and by the ending you’re really thinking about life and trying to absorb what the hell you just read. Every good book leaves people thinking about it after they’ve finished it!!

Rating: 3.5/5 (rounded up to 4) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

My thanks to Titan Books and Net Galley for a free DRC of "The Library at Hellebore" by Cassandra Khaw.
Dark Academia with loads of gore, weirdness, tense atmosphere, complex and dreadful scenarios and characters that are the dark gods and monsters of the world. This is not just an aesthetic, this is the real deal that holds no punches.
Hellebore is an academy that promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs, Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.
It was fascinating following our main character Alessa Li and her morally questionable survival mechanisms that you cannot help relating to or understanding deep down. The more time spent with her and the rest of the characters, the more you get to know them and find some humanity in their monstrosity.
The narrative is not only compelling, but thanks to the author’s exquisite prose even the most gruesome scenes are impossible to look away from.
My time invested was worth it and I appreciated the subtle nuanced commentaries sprinkled at the appropriate times and places in the narrative.
Because the story got so intriguing and the tension so palpable, towards the end I had a bit too much of the decadence of the descriptive prose and I selfishly wanted to get to the point. But that was a minor complaint.
Highly recommended for readers that don’t flinch at body horror, self harm and truly gruesome scenes with tons of gore.

Cassandra Khaw delivers another beautifully brutal nightmare with The Library at Hellebore, a dark academia bloodbath soaked in viscera and existential dread. This is The Breakfast Club meets Lord of the Flies if the teachers were literal monsters and the only way to survive was to decide who dies next. The claustrophobic setting, the rotting opulence of the library, and Khaw’s signature poetic gore make this a feral little masterpiece. Every sentence cuts, every choice bleeds. I devoured it. And it bit back.

I was excited to dive into a monster-style horror story, but this book didn’t deliver for me.

The jumpy timelines made it hard to follow, and the overly complex vocabulary pulled me out of the story more than it drew me in. What should’ve been a quick, thrilling read ended up feeling like a chore—long, confusing, and honestly, pretty boring.

I didn’t connect with the characters or care much about what was happening… other than wanting it to finally be over.

(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Some details about me: I don’t especially like dark academia; I am not very keen to extreme horror where gore is king; I always have mixed feelings when reading Cassandra Khaw.

And yet, here I am: I read The Library at Hellebore in one single afternoon, unable to put it down, eager to know more, to understand each character more, to make sense of the chronology (ok, so, if this character was dead two chapters ago, but now is still alive, but the chapter just says ‘Before’, but it is also ‘Day Two’..)
The story is a very original one, at least for someone who does not usually read dark academia. Hellebore is a school / prison (depending of who you ask) were young people with terrible powers reside. And by terrible powers I mean world-ending ones. Our main character is Alessa Li, an unwilling student that at the end of the school years discovers that the teachers… eat the alumni. Kind of the comic Deadly Class, but with more cannibalism. In order to avoid being eaten, a small group of characters barricade themselves in the library. And chaos ensues.

The novel has very graphic depictions of murder, dismemberment, some extremely bizarre body horror… and yet, it kind of feels natural, taking into account the setting.
Some people say that the world building is very fragile to be a good dark academia, that usually there is more information about the magic system, but I didn’t really mind. In fact, the two only things that disappointed me were not knowing the characters more (each story feels the prelude to some huge eerie discovery, but suddenly the character is dead and now you will never know anything more about them) and I found the chronology to be extremely convoluted without any true reason.

This was so good! The mix of fantasy, horror/gore, humor, and dark academia is immaculate. It would seem like too many things to play with, but the author did a great job at balancing everything out.

I had a lot of fun with this story. The premise is so good, and it was executed well, the setting was insane, I really loved it, the characters were very interesting, and the way the story is told, switching between past and present, was handled very well because it created suspense without slowing things down (it was a little disorienting sometimes, especially at first, but once you're further in the story, everything comes together).

I think this is a great addition to the dark academia genre, and while it has a lot of the familiar elements we expect from dark academia, it still manages to be fresh and be its own twisted, macabre little thing.

This book really surprised me, I liked it a lot more than I expected to. I find dark academia is so hit and miss. I personally preferred that there weren’t complex explanations of the world the magic etc. as I likely would have lost interest in it.

I found the variety of powers so interesting and they produced some fantastically gruesome body horror. The school itself had a great atmosphere, grand and sinister, I wish I lived there.

The one thing I would say is that it was a bit wordy at times and I don’t think I fully grasped the ending. Fortunately I enjoyed the ride enough for this not to bother me that much.

Verbose and confusing. I spent at least 50% of this book utterly baffled, and I was so frustrated by the time things started to make sense, that I couldn't appreciate it.

Khaw also has an odd habit of having characters say things which make no sense: not in a narrative way, but rather exclamations, or lines of conversation, that simply reassure / participate, but which are not things any person has ever uttered in response to someone else! This breaks immersion entirely because you have to pause, and try to work out what they mean, or what that random sentence has to do with anything else, and when you eventually abandon hope of understanding why someone would come out with that, you have to reintegrate into the story.

Disappointing. 2.5 stars rounded up.

Alessa Li is an unwilling student at Hellebore—a school for people with dangerous powers. The story is told over two timelines: one is set before graduation and one is set after when the teachers go on a rampage to devour all of the students. Alessa and a few others seek refuge in the school’s library, but things are just as dangerous within those walls.

I love the premise of The Library at Hellebore but found it a bit difficult to get a good grasp on the story. The lush language certainly paints a dark academia aesthetic, but I wanted more details about classes and the library itself as an environment. It all just felt a bit hazy to me. In contrast to that, the vivid descriptions of gore and the various abilities of our cast of characters were the standout elements for me.

I’m happy to have read it, but I don’t think it’ll linger in my mind. I can definitely see this being a favourite for people who gel with the writing style though!