778 reviews for:

The Borrower

Rebecca Makkai

3.54 AVERAGE

adventurous emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

theinkwyrm's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 42%

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this book, and I actually quite enjoyed the first 50ish pages, but once the “kidnapping” happens, I just stopped caring. I can’t tell if it’s me or the book, but either way I’m not finishing it.
adventurous hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Interesting book. Love the way she incorporates children's literature. Best line--"I am the monster at the end of this book."

I initially wanted to read this book because I love libraries. I also liked that the book centered around a librarian. I don't think I've ever read about about a librarian before. After reading this book, I glanced at the reviews to see others take on it. Many have raved about this book, and many hated it. For me, I liked it. It wasn't bad nor was it outstanding. I liked the pace of the book and I liked the story over all.

This story is all about Lucy wanting to protect Ian from his own parents. I understand her motives, I just don't agree with her methods. Putting what I disliked about Lucy aside, the book was written is such a way that wasn't boring. It kept my attention from pg 30-336, in one sitting. With that said, I still had a hard time relating to Lucy. Not only did I have a hard time with Lucy, I could not believe Ian either. He's a very manipulative little boy. My niece is 10, she'll be 11 in a few weeks. She NEVER has had tantrums like this little boy did. It's crazy to me how he was able to manipulate Lucy. That's really how she got into this disaster of a situation. Too bad she couldn't think her way around a 10 year old's manipulation. Then again, maybe she didn't want to, and his "kidnapping" her was a good excuse for her to help him. Lucy is clearly missing the voice of reason that tells you not to do something. Even though the entire time she has thoughts of getting arrested, it's like she couldn't stop the train once it left the stop. I can't not believe she got away with what she did. Yes, her intentions were good at heart, but she totally crossed the line and had no consequences at all. This story was totally void of realism in that regard.

I'm not really sure how I feel about the supporting characters, especially Lucy's dad. He sounds like a great role model there...(can you hear my sarcasm?). Then this random piano player Lucy carries on with. Really there is no purpose to that story line. I think that he just helps pad the story more.

Ian's parents seem pretty lame to be quit frank. Trying to un-gayify (is that even a word!) your child? That's sad. Not letting him read or do anything that's not religious? That's even more sad. We don't live in boxes. In my personal opinion, sheltering children to that extent does nothing but hurt them in the long run. I can totally see Ian rebelling completely as he gets older and even into adulthood.

Even though unrealistic, I'm happy with the ending. I'm glad that nothing detrimental happened to Ian, and maybe he learned a lot along his road trip with Ms.Hull, his favorite librarian.

This story touches a lot of hot spots for people. Homosexuality, religion, parenting, etc. I recommend this book for book clubs because I'm sure there will be some heated conversations and varying perspectives on this book.
adventurous funny fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I was really on and off about this book, and especially the characters. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't do it. The main character, Lucy Hull, gets on my nerves quite a bit. She's pretty self-centered and seems to treat everyone poorly. Her best (and only?) friend from Hannibal, she realizes about two-thirds through the book, she knows next to nothing about and she self admittedly avoids him because she thinks he's in love with her. It also seems like she thinks she's such a good person because she's the only one who'll spend time with him because he's in a wheelchair, and it ends up coming off as a bit self-congratulatory. She's also quite a jerk to her boyfriend. She pretends to like his music while laughing at it in her head and then instead of just ending it with him herself, she basically tries to be as cruel as possible to him so he'll break up with her. He's a bit attached to her, but he comes off as a fairly decent guy, bringing her flowers and attempting to be good with Ian for her. She loves to insult her library coworkers constantly as well. Her boss is apparently a perpetual drunk, which she takes advantage of to trick her into believing she's agreed to things like vacation time, and the other children's librarians are incompetent idiots who can't even handle story time without her. She constantly is bitching about others' faults and looking down on everyone while framing herself as a revolutionary standing up for justice. But enough of my rant on her.

The boy, Ian, is similarly infuriating, but that's more because I find most children frustrating. He manages to blackmail Lucy into taking him on a cross-country trip, which I guess kind of annoyed me that he didn't bother to think about what he was putting her through or didn't care (also Lucy was a complete pushover/idiot to be pressured into this by a ten year-old). He throws tantrums every time he isn't getting his way and he's generally very moody. I was never really sure quite what he was running away from. He has a system set up for smuggling books from the library and his only complaint about the anti-gay classes he has to attend is that they're kind of boring. I guess he just wanted an adventure?

The story is pretty much taken up with: traveling on the road and buying gas stop junk food, Lucy trying to tell Ian it's okay if he's gay and just being extremely awkward and condescending instead, Lucy imagining scenarios in which the FBI track her down and she goes to jail for kidnapping, Lucy having a tirade against someone (popular subjects include Pastor Bob with his anti-gay classes and Ian's supposedly anorexic evangelical mother), Ian being fickle and throwing tantrums. So what I thought was going to be an exciting and possibly philosophical road trip turned into a whiny, wandering mess.

In the end this book kind of beats you repeatedly with the message that fundamentalists are bad and books are good. Which I agree with in general, but the book just seemed so awkward about saying it that it was uncomfortable and I disliked the character who was on the "good" side so much that I found myself trying to rationalize the behaviors of anyone she opposed. The only really redeeming parts of this book where when there were Russians involved, mostly because I had fun reading their dialogue in a horrible Russian accent. Big disappointment though considering the description sounded so good and the first chapter or two were initially intriguing.

This book is on the light side; The plot is implausible, and the protagonist is not likable (or rather I kept thinking I really shouldn't like her). Still, this is an engaging story and I couldn't stop rooting for the plucky young librarian.
challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated