Rating: 95% | A | ★★★★★
Synopsis (from Goodreads): Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves. Spoiler-Free Review: Another year, another September. I'm back to college, and it feels as though I've been here forever even though my house is different, my professors are different, and even my friends are different. Everything is the same. Everything is different, and in times like these I crave something cliché and comforting. Emily Henry's Book Lovers was my most anticipated read of this year. It's a rich, warm hug of a novel, made for book lovers by a book lover. Henry excels at creating romances that teeter into tropes without losing realism. While this is my least favorite of Henry's three adult romances, it is by far the funniest of the group. "Have you heard of MOM?"
Nora is a brilliant protagonist, trope-y without being laughable, and unapologetically herself. Everyone has a Nora in their life, and whether you admire, fear, or worry about them, you want to understand them. Henry empathizes with such figures in Book Lovers. Charlie is also Nora's perfect match, so perfect that the reader stops just short of an eye roll. This book is fantastic, trope-y goodness.
There is only one aspect of the novel that feels off-kilter, and that is Libby's character. Compared to Nora, the reader does not spend much time with Libby, and subsequently she feels quite two-dimensional. Placing her as the crux of one of the novel's main conflicts leads to a frustrating conclusion, and interactions between her and the other characters often feel like side storylines rather than integral scenes. (Maybe this is just my internal younger sibling disowning any sort of legitimate annoying characteristic in Libby.) Ultimately, it wouldn't be an Emily Henry romance without some sort of heartbreak near the end. I never expect to cry at the end of her books—but I always do. Whether it's the sister dynamic, the painful hometown nostalgia, or the struggle to move beyond fear of the future, this book will touch a nerve in every reader. That's the thing about being an adult standing beside your childhood race car bed. Time collapses, and instead of the version of you you've built from scratch, you're all the hackneyed drafts that came before, all at once.
This quote plays on a loop in my head. I live in a tender moment of my life. I am simultaneously my work in progress and my crumpled-up drafts. Cheers to you and me, and to the pursuit of our finalized, bound stories.
2 Comments
Meow
9/24/2022 02:36:32 am
Awesome I want to read this now
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Kathryn
9/24/2022 03:38:30 pm
book4book where I read madeline miller and you read emily henry
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From the ArchiveWhile my main reviews are organized by seasons and I try to write reviews immediately after I finish reading, there are always stories that lose to the hustle and bustle of everyday life. From the Archive is a redemptive collection of mini-reviews of books I read in the past that continue to captivate me.
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