August reads

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

The bookstore by Deborah Meyler 2,5/5
English Esme Garland is a PhD student at New York's prestigious Columbia University. She loves New York and loves discovering her new city at the hand of her rich boyfriend Mitchell van Leuven. In short, life is close to perfect, until Esme discovers she's pregnant and Mitchell breaks up with her before she can even tell him about the baby. Determined to do the right thing on her own, Esme decides to look for a job and finds it in the quaint second-hand bookstore The Owl. The bookstore becomes her sanctuary and the strange group of employees her friends.

Isn't it a pity, when the title, cover and synopsis of a book promise a great read, but when the actual book falls short? That's what happened with The Bookstore. I loved the writing in the book, it was beautifully descriptive and lyrical. The story itself however and the characters where pretty meh. Esme is naive and Mitchell is a jerk and as a reader you really can't help but be annoyed at the fact it takes Esme over 300 pages to find this out. The book would've been better if it had been more about the actual bookstore and less about Esme and Mitchell's relationship. (Full review here)

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