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3.25 AVERAGE
3.25 AVERAGE
I could maybe go to 3.5 stars here. A nice story that I started listening to in audio. The narrator had a lovely Irish lilt, but I finished it with the ebook borrowed from the library. :-) This was said to be for fans of Maeve Binchy - but those are pretty big shoes to fill and no one can cast a heartwarming set of characters the way Maeve could. Hanna was a great character, but I don't think the rest had as much warmth and charm as ones that would fill a Binchy book. Still, a nice story, and if you're looking for one of those -I would recommend The Library at the Edge of the World.
A wonderful tale of going home after a divorce and trying to find your place in the community again. Too old to be living with her mother Hanna struggles to make sense of what's happened in her life. With her adult daughter living in another country and a fiercely independent mother she's not sure where she belongs. Deciding to renovate a dilapidated cottage on the edge of the cliff and leading the fight to save Lissbeg library where Hanna works give her something to focus on. Things don't always go to plan though and her life starts to take turns in directions she couldn't have imagined.
Despite its glacially paced narrative, I quite liked this book.
I read this entirely on a plane. Predictable and unsubtle, but pretty satisfying storyline. I like libraries and successful engagement in local politics.
Small-town people go to war with the city council that is trying to cut funding for their communities! Okay it’s mostly about the library that will be shut down thanks to the council’s new funding strategy. There were so many good things about this book. Firstly I enjoy getting to read about characters of different ages with differing life experience and we’ve got that. I like it when women take the lead and they are doing that here, after all our communities are held up by women so it would only make sense for women to be the most concerned about their locale. I enjoyed the different character relationships - exes, parent-child of different generations, coworkers, acquaintances, growing friendships, it’s all good. I loved the setting. I loved the narration for the audiobook. I loved how everything came together in the end! A great read all-around!
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I honestly had such high hopes for this book because the premise sounded really adorable and it was about saving a library but it ended up falling incredibly flat for me. Though, to be honest, I was discussing this book with a friend and telling him what the premise was and he thought it flat out sounded really boring so…maybe that should have been a clue that I was blinded by the idea of the library.
For me, I think the biggest problems were the writing style and the main character. I just couldn’t get into the writing style at all. I found it very dry and incredibly slow at times. There were also a lot of random things going on that I couldn’t really focus on the actual plot at times. If it were things that I could care about, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I wasn’t at all interested in any of the side plots.
As for the main character herself, she was one that I couldn’t relate to at all. People said that she’s middle-aged but she’s in her 50s. For me, that’s no longer considered middle-aged. So there was that huge age gap to start off with which I was initially not aware of. I was under the impression that she was in her mid-30s or even 40s, like other adult fiction out there, but as I’m only in my mid-20s, reading and trying to relate to someone who is in her 50s was hard to do.
I also couldn’t bring myself to like her. As a librarian, I was really surprised by all the things she hated to do that was related to books. She was the stereotypical librarian from the 90s (I am clearly just stating an era, I have no idea what era this stereotype is from) where she required everyone to be incredibly silent. However, when I visit libraries these days, that’s no longer the case. There are usually activities going on and lively discussions happening but in Hanna’s library, book clubs were frowned upon and any suggestions of conducting any meetings was vetoed immediately by her. So for me, I wasn’t surprised that her library was on the verge of closing down. There was nothing for anyone to do there.
If I had to pick one thing that I did enjoy, that would be the setting. I really do want to visit Ireland one day and reading about this small community and how everyone is so friendly to one another with a few exceptions (as always), really tugged at my heart and I really want to visit there ASAP. Maybe I’ll try to make it happen in 2019.
Overall, I was sorely disappointed with this book. Even at the end, when everything was resolved to some degree, it never really felt as if there were any true closure as the ending was really subpar. I was expecting some great miracle to happen but it ended up being really lackluster. So no, I would not recommend this book to anyone. The cover looks pretty though!
I honestly had such high hopes for this book because the premise sounded really adorable and it was about saving a library but it ended up falling incredibly flat for me. Though, to be honest, I was discussing this book with a friend and telling him what the premise was and he thought it flat out sounded really boring so…maybe that should have been a clue that I was blinded by the idea of the library.
For me, I think the biggest problems were the writing style and the main character. I just couldn’t get into the writing style at all. I found it very dry and incredibly slow at times. There were also a lot of random things going on that I couldn’t really focus on the actual plot at times. If it were things that I could care about, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I wasn’t at all interested in any of the side plots.
As for the main character herself, she was one that I couldn’t relate to at all. People said that she’s middle-aged but she’s in her 50s. For me, that’s no longer considered middle-aged. So there was that huge age gap to start off with which I was initially not aware of. I was under the impression that she was in her mid-30s or even 40s, like other adult fiction out there, but as I’m only in my mid-20s, reading and trying to relate to someone who is in her 50s was hard to do.
I also couldn’t bring myself to like her. As a librarian, I was really surprised by all the things she hated to do that was related to books. She was the stereotypical librarian from the 90s (I am clearly just stating an era, I have no idea what era this stereotype is from) where she required everyone to be incredibly silent. However, when I visit libraries these days, that’s no longer the case. There are usually activities going on and lively discussions happening but in Hanna’s library, book clubs were frowned upon and any suggestions of conducting any meetings was vetoed immediately by her. So for me, I wasn’t surprised that her library was on the verge of closing down. There was nothing for anyone to do there.
If I had to pick one thing that I did enjoy, that would be the setting. I really do want to visit Ireland one day and reading about this small community and how everyone is so friendly to one another with a few exceptions (as always), really tugged at my heart and I really want to visit there ASAP. Maybe I’ll try to make it happen in 2019.
Overall, I was sorely disappointed with this book. Even at the end, when everything was resolved to some degree, it never really felt as if there were any true closure as the ending was really subpar. I was expecting some great miracle to happen but it ended up being really lackluster. So no, I would not recommend this book to anyone. The cover looks pretty though!
Loved reading this, a slight insight into small town Irish life!! Makes me want to visit the Irish coast described in the book.
I have mixed feelings about this book. The writing was well done, but there was very little storyline until the end. Most of the book was about the history of the location and the characters, and a lot of it was very unnecessary to the story. The ending was a bit disappointing, because the way it came about is very implausible, the kind of ending that could only happen in a book, and the kind of ending I wouldn't expect from this kind of book.
this is a very slow paced book. Hanna is kind of hard to get to know as she closes out most people. I do like that she travels to other towns to give them library books that they might otherwise not be able to get. I felt that there could have been a bit more romance (there isn't a whole lot) and that might have made me give more stars..... it was ok, not was I was expecting or hoping.