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A review by danielles_reads
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
"Having you here is connecting me to why I do this. To why I used to love it. I don't know if I can explain it, but watching you read what I give you, putting a book in your hands and seeing what happens to you once you put it back down. I can't make you understand how that gives me something I didn't know I had to have. ... You helped me remember why I bother."
Well, this ended up being just fine. But since I absolutely loved Legends & Lattes, this feels disappointing.
First, I was surprised at how unlikeable Viv is in the beginning of this book. She is completely full of herself, and scorns everyone else. She looks down upon reading and relaxing (it would make her "weak, soft, sleepy"). It took a little while for her to start to feel like the Viv we all know and love from L&L, and it was a strange feeling to find her so irritating. Fortunately it wasn't for too much of the book, but now that I've finished, I feel like she did change very quickly.
But I think my main complaint here is due to the order Baldree wrote these books, and the clear lack of planning on his part. Because there is absolutely no connection between this book and L&L (other than Gallina, but she was not a huge part of Viv's development in this book), and that makes everything Viv experiences in Murk feel completely pointless. As far as I can remember (perhaps I'm wrong but I've seen other reviews mentioning the same thing so I'm feeling confident), Viv does not mention reading, Murk, Fern, Maylee, or anyone or anything she experienced in B&B in L&L. But if this town completely changed her personality so much, to the point where she realizes that fighting isn't everything, learns to love reading, and becomes less arrogant, why would she never think of it later in life? Where is the lasting impact? Especially considering she literally fell in love with someone who works at a bakery, and she later sold baked goods at her coffee shop. Like come on, there's an obvious link there?! But alas, no. This book is completely isolated from Viv's later life and thus everything feels pointless. Baldree tried to fix this with an epilogue that spoils the ending of L&L, which forces readers to read the books in publication order, and also revealed to me exactly how little Viv thought about the people she met in Murk. She didn't talk to them for 20 years!
The relationship between Viv and Maylee felt especially pointless to me considering that most of their interactions with each other consisted of talking about how their relationship would be short-lived, which is someone anyone who has read L&L already knows. They kissed exactly once, and really barely touched each other. I didn't feel any chemistry between them and wish they had just remained friends.
A lot of this book felt like filler. There were tons and tons of descriptions of the scenery and weather that I don't remember happening in L&L. There were also a lot of scenes from the books that Viv was reading, which was especially confusing in the audiobook as there was no separation from the rest of the story. I spent most of the first third constantly mixing up the characters as I couldn't remember who was actually in B&B and who was in Viv's books. It felt like Baldree wanted to play around with prose, but personally that's not what I'm reading these books for.
What I really loved about L&L was the low-stakes but heartwarming goal of Viv opening her coffee shop. There was the subplot about her old mercenary pal or whatever, but it felt minor. But in B&B, there was an entire necromancer plot that felt like it overshadowed the cozy bookstore vibes to me. Viv was constantly worrying about danger happening, but then when it did she seemed way too casual about it, lol. I couldn't believe she went around telling everyone about Satchel. Plus, the ending didn't make much sense to me as
This is a lot of complaining but it's mainly because I had such high expectations for this book. I did have a good time listening to it, as Baldree really is an insanely talented narrator. The wide variety of character voices he did was incredible! Even all the female characters he voiced sounded so different, with no cringey falsetto either. I also did like Fern (though her swearing did get to be a bit much tbh), Potroast, the author lady, and especially Satchel. I really did love Viv helping Fern with her bookstore, and getting it all spruced up with Pits' help too. While Maylee fell flat to me, I did love everyone's appreciation of the bakery. Really I loved all the cozy bookshop vibes, and I just really wanted WAY MORE of that and way less of the necromancer plot (though it did give us Satchel so I guess I can't complain about its existence entirely).
I'm hoping that later books in this series will focus on other characters than Viv, or at least they will be explicitly linked to B&B and/or L&L so that the readers can actually see character development over time and feel the lasting impacts of the events we are seeing.
"Still, the more I think about it, it seems like it ought to be obvious that people in books are wrong all the time. Hells, the authors are wrong. So, maybe that's what the story says in the words that got put down, but if you could read past the end, the words that didn't get written, maybe it ends up being something else altogether."
"The story past the story," murmured Fern.