Review by bekahbailey - The Bookshop on the Corner

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bekahbailey 's review for:

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

2.0

lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Loveable characters: No

I feel a bout conflicted about this book. I enjoyed the first 3/4 quite a bit. It mostly felt like a cozy small town real-life fiction, with bits of romance. The first part of the book was mostly about the main character and her experiences of running her book shop after moving from a large city to a small village in Scotland. About 3/4 of the way through the book, it's like a switch is flipped and the book is solely about the relationship that the main character gets into with a love interest. Not only was this jarring because the rest of the book describes mostly other experiences of the main character, but it also felt like a very sudden change within the context of the main character's relationship with that love interest. Plus I didn't find the love interest interesting (a gruff man who is incapable of communicating and is completely focused on the physical aspect of the relationship). Gave me the ick a bit that the woman drops everything for a non-communicative man as soon as he shows interest even though he mostly is interested in her body. The rest of the book is about her building community through her passion, and then that totally disappears the moment the love interest wants her to be available at all hours.

There are a few other things that irritated me, but to a much lesser extent. For example, the main character was very naive in a way that was slightly irritating, but I can generally look past that especially for a fluffier book.

TL;DR I liked the first 3/4 well enough but wasn't keen on the sudden shift to only focus on a relationship that wasn't even compelling to me.

2 stars because I liked 75% of the book.

Content Warnings