booktalkwithkarla 's review for:

The Bookbinder by Pip Williams

4.5

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Peggy and Maude are twins, and look exactly alike but otherwise could not be more different. Both twins work in the bindery. Peggy wants to “read the books, not bloody bind them.” Maude is content to fold day after day. 

Pip Williams knows how to weave together a story. This is only her second novel. In it she leaves Easter eggs from her first. The connections between the characters are deep and well written. The plot moves you forward. I loved her inclusion of Peggy’s thoughts and then her actual responses. I know someone like her (maybe really well) and this one detail alone would have been enough, but Williams makes her distinctive. The character arcs are solid. And the history of book binding is fun. 

I like so much about this novel. Obviously the prevalence of books, the sister dynamic, found family, value based characters are a hit for me. The parallels between Maude’s repetition and repeating patterns for treatment of women were interesting.  I also really like the connections to her previous novel The Dictionary of Lost Words. Esme and Garth show up in this second novel. Williams is a solid read for me and I look forward to reading more of her work as she releases her third book and beyond. 

Quotes:

“When a privilege is unfairly denied, Tilda liked to say, then it must be taken.”

“… we didn’t hate each other as much as we’d thought. We just hadn’t known each other very well before the war.”