A Tale of Two Libraries: Hellebore vs Mount Char
- May 12
- 6 min read
Two surreal horror stories about power, with surface similarities and vast differences
Have Your Library Card?
I think I’ve mentioned once or twice in the past that The Library at Mount Char (2015) is among my favourite novels; perhaps also that I have a tradition of reading it every year in December since I first discovered Scott Hawkins’ best and only work in 2022.
I’m always on the lookout for books that can come close to the dazzling scope and imagination of what Mount Char achieves – check back next week for my review of one such rare gem – and so was intrigued when Cassandra Khaw’s The Library at Hellebore (2025) was chosen for one of my book clubs this month.
I can’t find any source to confirm Khaw was inspired by Hawkins, but I think the similar title, structure, themes and well, almost everything is conclusive enough for me. It’s certainly not a carbon copy, though, with Khaw’s intensely descriptive style an overwhelming and impossible to ignore difference.
If you’re going to read one of these novels with no more information than that, I’ll recommend The Library at Mount Char one hundred percent of the time. If you want more reasons as to why, follow me into the spoilers ahead.
On Library Premises
The Library at Mount Char follows Carolyn, kidnapped as a child along with eleven others to learn the secrets of the universe from Father – a mysterious figure bowed to by gods and monsters. The narrative alternates between defining moments of Carolyn’s past and the present, as she and her ‘siblings’ investigate Father’s disappearance. Present Carolyn is an unreliable narrator, made even more difficult to understand by our often only seeing her through the eyes of Steve and Erwin – the archetypal straight men learning about Carolyn’s world for the first time as surrogates for the reader.
The Library at Hellebore follows Alessa Li, kidnapped in her early twenties to study at The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted because she is too powerfully violent to be allowed to live in normal society. Hellebore is overseen by the mysterious Faculty, clearly extremely potent beings given their role as teachers and prison guards for the young and powerful. The narrative alternates between important moments of Alessa’s time at Hellebore and the present, as she and seven classmates struggle to survive the Faculty’s hunger and each other in a slightly contrived battle royale. Present Alessa is a partially unreliable narrator, having just murdered her roommate for reasons not explained until near the end of the book.
The Library at Mount Char’s prose is straightforward, even if on a first read the plot is nigh incomprehensible. The writing is dark, and darkly comedic, with the type of deadpan delivery that gets me every time.
The Library at Hellebore’s prose is utterly decadent with imagery, particularly when it comes to descriptions of gore and body horror. (It worked for me at first, but became overbearing before long as I searched for a character or plot thread to catch my interest.) The dialogue and certain technical choices – one early chapter introduces every character with variations of “a voice across the room spoke up” – were a little frustrating, and all humour (often crass, sometimes genuinely funny) is dished out by the designated class clown Rowan.
Of course, all of this is probably down to taste. Hellebore is marketed and likely written for fans of modern ‘dark academia’ and all that entails (often straying too close to the YA style I struggle with, though there are a number of exceptions). Mount Char, rather than aiming to fit neatly in a marketable box, was Hawkins’ attempt to stand out from the “slush pile” of manuscripts with something hard to define – and I’d argue he absolutely succeeded.
Meet the Librarians
As I hinted above, The Library at Hellebore offered me very little in the way of characters I felt attached to – even the non-binary Gracelynn and Kevin, with their unique personalities and abilities, did just about nothing for me. Alessa's backstory with eviscerating her would-be abusers mainly had me wanting to re-watch Promising Young Woman, if anything. Most characters just get so little time that any interest I have in them is stilborn – prophesied Cicada god-inhabited Sullivan, transforming Portia and her relationship to her cult, even Rowan's tragic origins. Cool ideas with very little substance.
Granted, the same is true for most of Carolyn's siblings in The Library at Mount Char – whether unnamed, only named, or named with an idea of their Catalogue. But the five you get to know, you get to know deeply, and they feel tragically human. Add Steve, Erwin, perhaps Father and a lion or two, and that's a lot of real-feeling characters to grapple with.
While Father and the Faculty are the overarching villains of their respective books, our protagonists are mainly working against rivals on their own level. Hellebore has Adam, gorgeous blond model and son of Satan well on track to become the Antichrist, if only he can keep his grades up and not get eaten by his teachers. Like everything in the book, Adam's evil is entirely politically correct, nailing Gracelynn and Kevin's pronouns even while mocking their deaths and eviscerating other classmates.
(Content warning: SA) Mount Char has David, whose Catalogue is warfare and who Father transformed from a cheerful and kind young boy into a maniacal psychopath. Modern society is anathema to these characters, and the novel doesn't shy away from mental, physical and sexual violence being very real and horrifying aspects of warfare – including against David's adopted siblings. We see the effects of his torment on Jennifer and Michael and how far he and Margaret have pushed each other; he is a target of Carolyn's vengeance from the beginning and his further abuse only adds fuel to her rage.
I feel Carolyn's hatred for David deeply and viscerally, even knowing the horror and tragedy that shaped him into this monstrosity. It adds to my empathy for her and elevates the tension in every scene they are together.
Hellebore's Adam is a fun villain once he gets going – certainly more so than the Faculty or Librarian, who turn out to just be flesh-eating monsters to be overcome – but there's so little personal connection between him and Alessa and I'm barely inclined to root for her anyway.
The Faculty themselves are a cool idea! Beings from another world or reality harvesting the juiciest of our world's magic in the guise of running a school/prison. But you start thinking about it for two seconds and the whole premise starts to run at the edges: why teach your food at all? Why encourage them to kill one another if you want to eat them alive? Why promise freedom to the winner of the impromptu battle royale? Why are they blind to Rowan being a death worker and all the other shenanigans the students get up to?
Father, now there's a character. Orders of magnitude more evil than David for having created that monster in addition to everything else. But also unquestionably capital-G Good, having usurped the previous god of our universe and introduced such things as 'love' and 'light' to reality. A tough nut to crack, and a tough villain to beat.
Choose Your Book
Again, there's a lot of genuinely fascinating ideas in The Library at Hellebore – if you can stand the gore and aren't looking for anything too deep. A lot of reviews say it's a well-executed look at power and relationships, the idea of fighting the need to become a monster in order to survive. Sure!
But I can say without a moment's hesitation that Mount Char does it better. Where Hellebore ends with Alessa defeating the Faculty, Mount Char has another whole act dedicated to confronting how dehumanized Carolyn has become in her single-minded quest for vengeance. It's profound and horrifying and incredibly important to any discussion about fighting monsters and becoming one yourself.
Look for The Library at Mount Char at your library if it sounds interesting to you! I promise it's worth the ride, and despite the occasional graphic violence it might as well be a middle grade book compared to the descriptions in Hellebore. And hey, if you're up for some decadent prose, give that one a read too. I certainly intend to give Khaw another shot, even if this one paled in comparison to one of my favourites.
Next week, King Sorrow. Should be fun.
Thanks for reading and until next time <3
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