Review: Book Lovers

 Title: The Little Village of Book Lovers

Author: Nina George

Out: July 25, 2023

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley

               Before starting this review, I went back and read my review for The Little Paris Bookshop.  Years later, the bookstore that  I mentioned in that review is gone.  In some ways, it feels as if America is further away from books than before – not only with the various book bans that have been going on but with the independent bookstores that have been closing.  At one point I lived within a twenty minute walk or a ten minute trolley ride from four independent bookstores.  Now, it is more like forty minutes to an hour, and I didn’t move.

               And yes, I know Booktok and Instagram, still exist.  And we have Goodreads.   There’s Librarything.   But in some of those cases, book love feels more performative or even judgmental.  Graphic novels don’t count as books to some people, audio books aren’t reading say others.  There are people who gush about how much they love books as they stand before book cases where the books are spine turned in or color coded.  And you can tell, just tell by listening, that they haven’t read the book they are gushing about.  But it doesn’t matter because now multiple people are saying you can’t say anything bad about a book because of an author’s feelings over their book baby or something.

               Sigh.  And yes, I realize I was being judgmental in the above paragraph.

               Yet, in some ways that’s way we need books like this.

               Or maybe we should all move to France – the land of wine, cheese, and books.

               This book isn’t so much a sequel to the Bookshop novel, but more of an addendum as it is the novel that inspires the characters in that novel.  This book is about Love and Marie-Jeanne.  Marie-Jeanne is orphaned though she has two devoted if a bit strange adopted parents. Despite the deaths of her parents, her life is, thankfully, free of trauma.  Because of her relationship to love,  she can see soulmates.  This perhaps makes the love story part of the book a bit too simplistic and predictable, but that really isn’t the point.

               Like it’s forerunner, this book is a lover letter reading.  The books mentioned including the Claudine books but also the great works of literature.  What is more importantly, people’s relationship to books and literary play a central role.  Francois, Marie-Jeanne’s father, starts a mobile library because of his relationship and view on books.  Part of this books best sequences are his attempts to get people to read.  And that’s where the other part of love comes in – not only love of literature and the feel of a physical book in your hand but also the love of discussing literature with those around you.

               Marie-Jeanne comes into her own and discovers she who is by reading.  This use of discovery is actually quite lovely and illustrates the power of books to help us understand ourselves.  In many ways, that is the point of this short novel.  While told largely via the viewpoint of Love, the book isn’t so much about the romantic love that fills much of its pages – but about the love of the written word in all its forms as well as love for those around us.