Author: Lucy Gilmore
Year published: 2023
Category: Adult fiction
Pages: 366 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): USA (ID)
Summary: A young librarian and an old curmudgeon forge the unlikeliest of friendships in this charming, feel-good novel about one misfit book club and the lives (and loves) it changed along the way.
Sloane Parker lives a small, contained life as a librarian in her small, contained town. She never thinks of herself as lonely…but still she looks forward to that time every day when old curmudgeon Arthur McLachlan comes to browse the shelves and cheerfully insult her. Their sparring is such a highlight of Sloane's day that when Arthur doesn't show up one morning, she's instantly concerned. And then another day passes, and another.
Anxious, Sloane tracks the old man down only to discover him all but bedridden...and desperately struggling to hide how happy he is to see her. Wanting to bring more cheer into Arthur's gloomy life, Sloane creates an impromptu book club. Slowly, the lonely misfits of their sleepy town begin to find each other, and in their book club, find the joy of unlikely friendship. Because as it turns out, everyone has a special book in their heart―and a reason to get lost (and eventually found) within the pages.
Books have a way of bringing even the loneliest of souls together...
Review: How could I not enjoy a book about a book club, a librarian, and readers?! I hoped it would be a feel-good novel and it was. I am such a sucker for that. Thank you Ti for recommending this book!
I finished this novel in only a couple days. I got totally pulled in by the ensemble cast who are cranky, loving, hurting, vulnerable, and wise. I couldn't resist a disparate group of people who are brought together based on each of them needing something. Or someone. And they love literature and reading. They talk about it all the time. It's what ostensibly brings them together! Sigh. So good.
Although one could say this is fluff reading, it also has deep issues that it deals with: parent/child relationships; telling those in our lives we love them (and what that mean to various people); how to express ourselves; aging; loneliness; and more. No sex, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence. Just relationships and the people in them.
I got teary at the end with sadness and happiness. I like that things (mostly) work out even though everything isn't perfect. That's how life is. If you want a novel that will make you smile and is a joy to read, check this one out! I'm going to see if I can convince one of my book groups to read it.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Alphabet Author--G
- Alphabet Title--L
- Bookish--librarian, book club
- Cover Lovers--Bookish elements
- Literary Escapes--Idaho
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