The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler

Name: The Bookstore
Author: Deborah Meyler
Format: kindle edition
Pages: 353 pages
Release date: 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury Reader

Teaser

Impressionable and idealistic, Esme Garland is a young British woman who finds herself studying art history in New York. She loves her apartment and is passionate about the city and her boyfriend; her future couldn’t look brighter. Until she finds out that she’s pregnant.

Esme’s boyfriend, Mitchell van Leuven, is old-money rich, handsome, successful, and irretrievably damaged. When he dumps Esme - just before she tries to tell him about the baby - she resolves to manage alone. She will keep the child and her scholarship, while finding a part-time job to make ends meet. But that is easier said than done, especially on a student visa.

The Owl is a shabby, second-hand bookstore on the Upper West Side, an all-day, all-night haven for a colorful crew of characters: handsome and taciturn guitar player Luke; Chester, who hyperventilates at the mention of Lolita; George, the owner, who lives on protein shakes and idealism; and a motley company of the timeless, the tactless, and the homeless. The Owl becomes a nexus of good in a difficult world for Esme but will it be enough to sustain her? Even when Mitchell, repentant and charming, comes back on the scene?




My thoughts

I kindly received The Bookstore in exchange of an honest review by the publisher via Netgalley.

The Bookstore sounded like a super intersting book to me. I loved the cover, the synopsis and I love Bookstores – surely this would be the perfect book for me? Without hesitation I hit the request button on Netgalley. I was lucky enough to be accepted :-)

The Bookstore is told entirely in the first person which is my preferred choice when our main character eclipses all of the other characters so it works incredibly well in this instance with Esme Garland  being our main focus. During the first chapter we learn more about Esme. She is a british young woman who  has taken up a scholarship at Columbia University to study art history. New Yorks charm has taken her completely. She fell in love in the city from the very first moment her feet landed on the airport. Quickly into her time in New York she meets and falls for Mitchell. Esme thought that he was the one. But, than, Esme got pregnant, and Mitchell behaved like the worst man on the planet. He dumped her. Alone in a foreign country, Esme found a part time job in the bookstore. The owner, the customers and her co workers become her family and the bookstore like a second home.

I was so excited when I started reading this book. There are many elements in this book I like but my feelings for this books are very mixed. I liked Esme, she wasn't very strong person and not perfect at all but likeable although. Some of the decisions that she does make really show her age, she seems incapable of thinking what is best for her and for her unborn child. She is very naïve. I wanted to shake her sometimes for not being able to see that Mitchell is not right for her. When she met Mitchell, she really thought that he really loved her but when she had to choose between him and her baby, she made her choice, eventually, but she did. Slowly Esme is learning to stand up for herself which is a great progress she is making and her life is going in the right direction.

I love all the detailed descriptions of New York, feel like I'm walking beside Esme. You can feel the authors knowledge of the city as she worked and lived there herself for many years. I liked the writing style of the author. The writing is very engaging, witty and enjoyable. There were parts of the book that I very enjoyed, but there were others that were so hard for me to finish. Unfortunately the ending crept up on me. It was quite abruptly and all seemed a little rushed. It has left me feeling a little disappointed.


3 cupcakes for The Bookstore

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