Review: Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace || Ghost in a jar

Archivist Wasp

Archivist Wasp Saga #1

Nicole Kornher-Stace

Wasp’s job is simple. Hunt ghosts. And every year she has to fight to remain Archivist. Desperate and alone, she strikes a bargain with the ghost of a supersoldier. She will go with him on his underworld hunt for the long-long ghost of his partner and in exchange she will find out more about his pre-apocalyptic world than any Archivist before her. And there is much to know. After all, Archivists are marked from birth to do the holy work of a goddess. They’re chosen. They’re special. Or so they’ve been told for four hundred years. 

Archivist Wasp fears she is not the chosen one, that she won’t survive the trip to the underworld, that the brutal life she has escaped might be better than where she is going. There is only one way to find out.

Publisher: Big Mouth House

Published: May 5th 2015

Violence, Blood, Death

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I read this two years ago and thought this book is something so completely new, I am in LOVE. I never dreamed that there’d be a sequel, but there is, so here I am… reviewing this beautiful book.

Wasp is an Archivist, raised to believe she is the goddess Catchkeep’s human incarnation. She is tasked into capturing, studying, and killing ghosts to learn about the Time Before and how it was destroyed. Yet, when she meets a Ghost who isn’t just a mindless bloodsucker, she gets into way more than she bargained for.

Right off the bat, we’re set in this post apocalyptic land where girls have to brutally murder each other for the role of Archivist, Wasp is on year three and is getting tired. She doesn’t know how long she’ll stay alive, but she won’t go down easy. I instantly fell for Wasp. Determination and adversity are two core personality traits in her that of course make her a badass.

Because things have not been easy for her. Isolated from her peers for killing so many of them, sent out alone to collect ghost (a dangerous task), she even lives above the town in this small hut, alone. You feel how lonely she is. She may be alive, but is it worth it?

Things end up hitting the fan pretty quick, meeting “Ghost” and striking a deal with him to find his comrade. If I’m honest, I didn’t have too many feelings about him, but the hate-to-friendship thing that happens was amazing. You know why? Because not once does it go into romance territory. At all. That’s a first. 

This world is pretty confusing. I couldn’t really get a grasp at where we were and what the landscape looked like when we leave the town. It makes sense, though. Our characters are in the Ghost World, which was very disorienting and strange… I had no idea what was happening for a while unless I reread it. That doesn’t mean I was taken out of the story, think of it as magic realism: you kind of go along for the ride (which is something I’m usually here for).

I think my favorite thing was the ending. It was powerful and liberating. This big bad who has been a threat for this book is dealt with in the best way. However, the villain, though intimidating, didn’t scare me. He was horrible, yes, but because Wasp was away from him for so long and the threat shifted to something else, he lost any hold he had on me. But his end was great.

I enjoyed this book, I have so many questions and I need more adventures from Wasp and my favorite Ghost.