Book Lovers

Nora just received the first chapters of her client’s new book.  To say she’s mortified may be an understatement – the main character is directly inspired by her own life, and it’s not a flattering representation.  To make things worse, her sister drug her to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere with horrible WiFi, bad coffee, and business names straight from dad jokes – this is nothing like her neighborhood in NYC!  To cap off the tragedy, she keeps running into Charlie – the surly editor who turned down her client’s last book.  By coincidence, that book was set in this tiny out of the way town, where her sister is now making Nora work through a checklist of all the small town romance novel tropes during their stay.

Emily Henry’s award-winning romance novel Book Lovers is both an ode to the genre and a bit of a mockery.  The author not only name drops other well-known writers and their books, she also calls out the themes so common to every Hallmark movie and cheesy romance book.  Henry specifically calls out readers, too, with comments about how readers hate to finish a book because they don’t want to say goodbye to the characters they love so much.  This book is about the literary industry and the consumers both. 

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I give Book Lovers 5 out of 5 stars. After two chapters, I was sure I wasn’t finishing this book.  The tropes, the callouts, the name dropping was all too much for me.  However, I found myself wanting to hear more about Nora and kept reading.  I connected with Nora and her need to solve the problems and take care of her family and her clients alike.  I also found myself literally laughing out loud at the witty banter between Nora and Charlie.  More than anything, I felt like I was reading about my own small-town upbringing.  It was a pleasure to read this book and, as Henry writes, I didn’t want to finish this book and say goodbye to the characters!

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I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a lighter read and an escape from reality.  There are a few scenes describing sexual relations – while not graphic or too detailed, they do move this book into the above 13 age bracket.  This book would make a great book club read – the discussions that could happen around Nora and Charlie’s relationship alone would be great!

I chose Book Lovers for the Booklist Queen Reading Challenge prompt “a 2022 bestseller”.  This novel was a #1 bestseller for several weeks.  It also won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance in 2022.  While I chose the print version of the book, it has also won awards for audiobook narration.  As I stated, I didn’t want to finish the book and say goodbye to these characters.  I am ever hopeful Henry writes a sequel bringing Charlie, Nora, and their family back to the page!

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What I’m Reading

• Current print book: South of the Buttonwood Tree, Heather Webber
• Current audio book: Homeward, Angela Jackson-Brown
• Book I’m most looking forward to: The Rules of Magic, Alice Hoffman