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A review by mnboyer
The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson
3.0
Kitty (Katharyn) wakes up one day to find she's in the middle of a life that isn't her own. In this new dream world she has married a man named Lars, has three children, and no longer runs her quaint bookstore with her best friend. And then she wakes up and returns to her life with a bookstore, single-lady status, and she and her best friend get to gab away. But which world is real? How can Kitty uncover which world is real? How can you trust anything when you don't know which reality is the "real" reality and which is "fiction"....
I added this book to my "must read" list in 2017 when I kept seeing this book pop up on lists of notable books, authors, etc. I finally realized that my public library had a Kindle version that I could borrow so, I decided to sit down and read this.
My first expectation: That this would be about a woman that sold books. I was expecting far more of the plot to take place in a bookstore. The cover misled me a little bit because this isn't necessarily about that job function at all. Kitty just so happens to be a bookseller (kind of, the business dwindles) and there's where we find our title. Good cover art choice though, as it lured me in!
My second expectation: The plot wouldn't be easy to unravel. I was hoping it would be harder to determine which life is 'real' and which is fake. There is a big reveal at one point later in the novel (almost at the end, as it were) but I had this solved a long time before that. I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing, as I suppose the reader gets to live in the suspense of trying to help Kitty understand reality/fiction. Yet... I wasn't as thrilled as I wanted to be.
The plot also tends to be similar to a lot of time travel/alter-reality novels in the fiction genre. Decent woman has to decide if her dream man is real or not. I'm not attempting to diminish the plot here or say this is the only story line in The Bookseller... but it is one of the major devices the book uses. Is Lars real? Is Katharyn real?
I appreciated some of the questions of domesticity that arose. If Kitty is indeed a mother of three... has she given up her book shop willingly? What happened to the strong independent bookseller? If Kitty has one child that has autism... was she a bad mother? (This takes place in the 1960s so doctors still believe autism is derived from bad mothering within the context of this novel)
There are some unique things scattered throughout the book.
I enjoyed the portrayal of the autistic son, Michael, and thought this was a clever way of saying no life is perfect to the reader. Perhaps even life is intricate. I found it to be a realistic portrayal of autism--and that was key, to me--because Michael wasn't used as some form of political plot device. He's just a young boy who is autistic. Simple, honest, representative of a group of individuals that I find are frequently left of out literary representations. This was a gem that was hidden within the text. (Also--Michael is extremely smart and helps Kitty begin to unravel and understand reality/fake world issues)
Lars was a very likable individual and so, portraying the hunky possibly dream man makes sense with him. I though he may have been the most developed character (potentially a conflict since this is supposed to be a story about Kitty).
There are a lot of historic references to try and situate you in the time/place of the novel. I learned some interesting information about Patsy Cline, for example. I feel like no one told me she died in a plane crash!!! But I fact checked.... who knew?! So again, I appreciate the accurate building of the time period.
Things I didn't necessarily enjoy:
1) The side plot with Kitty's parents. This will develop through postcard correspondence. Later you'll figure out why this is relevant:
2) The plot revolving around Kitty and her best friend, Frieda. The pair run the bookstore together and Frieda has been Kitty's rock when she needs it. In one world, they are best friends. In another world, they've had a falling out after Kitty has left the store to tend to her family. But I didn't necessarily need the "friendship fight" in this story. In one world Frieda ends up running a chain of bookstores, which are wildly popular at the time, but I want to caution Frieda that by 2018 many of the large bookstores (Borders, for example) have been put out of business. Invest in Amazon.... Frieda be wise and invest in Amazon! Sigh.
Overall...
A quick, fun read that does not provide what you might be expecting based on the cover and blurb. Only about 50% of the plot is actually about Kitty/Lars. The rest is divided up with Frieda, the parents, etc. I wouldn't classify this as something super romantic (like [b:Outlander|10964|Outlander (Outlander, #1)|Diana Gabaldon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1529065012s/10964.jpg|2489796]). The travel is not as intricate as some stories (like [b:The Time Traveler's Wife|14050|The Time Traveler's Wife|Audrey Niffenegger|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437728815s/14050.jpg|2153746]) but instead manifests as a dream world when Kitty goes to sleep. It is fun. But in the end it does not live up to the "amazing" hype that I heard about it.
I added this book to my "must read" list in 2017 when I kept seeing this book pop up on lists of notable books, authors, etc. I finally realized that my public library had a Kindle version that I could borrow so, I decided to sit down and read this.
My first expectation: That this would be about a woman that sold books. I was expecting far more of the plot to take place in a bookstore. The cover misled me a little bit because this isn't necessarily about that job function at all. Kitty just so happens to be a bookseller (kind of, the business dwindles) and there's where we find our title. Good cover art choice though, as it lured me in!
My second expectation: The plot wouldn't be easy to unravel. I was hoping it would be harder to determine which life is 'real' and which is fake. There is a big reveal at one point later in the novel (almost at the end, as it were) but I had this solved a long time before that. I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing, as I suppose the reader gets to live in the suspense of trying to help Kitty understand reality/fiction. Yet... I wasn't as thrilled as I wanted to be.
The plot also tends to be similar to a lot of time travel/alter-reality novels in the fiction genre. Decent woman has to decide if her dream man is real or not. I'm not attempting to diminish the plot here or say this is the only story line in The Bookseller... but it is one of the major devices the book uses. Is Lars real? Is Katharyn real?
I appreciated some of the questions of domesticity that arose. If Kitty is indeed a mother of three... has she given up her book shop willingly? What happened to the strong independent bookseller? If Kitty has one child that has autism... was she a bad mother? (This takes place in the 1960s so doctors still believe autism is derived from bad mothering within the context of this novel)
There are some unique things scattered throughout the book.
I enjoyed the portrayal of the autistic son, Michael, and thought this was a clever way of saying no life is perfect to the reader. Perhaps even life is intricate. I found it to be a realistic portrayal of autism--and that was key, to me--because Michael wasn't used as some form of political plot device. He's just a young boy who is autistic. Simple, honest, representative of a group of individuals that I find are frequently left of out literary representations. This was a gem that was hidden within the text. (Also--Michael is extremely smart and helps Kitty begin to unravel and understand reality/fake world issues)
Lars was a very likable individual and so, portraying the hunky possibly dream man makes sense with him. I though he may have been the most developed character (potentially a conflict since this is supposed to be a story about Kitty).
There are a lot of historic references to try and situate you in the time/place of the novel. I learned some interesting information about Patsy Cline, for example. I feel like no one told me she died in a plane crash!!! But I fact checked.... who knew?! So again, I appreciate the accurate building of the time period.
Things I didn't necessarily enjoy:
1) The side plot with Kitty's parents. This will develop through postcard correspondence. Later you'll figure out why this is relevant:
Spoiler
something having to do with the parents causes Kitty to get stuck between the real/fake world.2) The plot revolving around Kitty and her best friend, Frieda. The pair run the bookstore together and Frieda has been Kitty's rock when she needs it. In one world, they are best friends. In another world, they've had a falling out after Kitty has left the store to tend to her family. But I didn't necessarily need the "friendship fight" in this story. In one world Frieda ends up running a chain of bookstores, which are wildly popular at the time, but I want to caution Frieda that by 2018 many of the large bookstores (Borders, for example) have been put out of business. Invest in Amazon.... Frieda be wise and invest in Amazon! Sigh.
Overall...
A quick, fun read that does not provide what you might be expecting based on the cover and blurb. Only about 50% of the plot is actually about Kitty/Lars. The rest is divided up with Frieda, the parents, etc. I wouldn't classify this as something super romantic (like [b:Outlander|10964|Outlander (Outlander, #1)|Diana Gabaldon|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1529065012s/10964.jpg|2489796]). The travel is not as intricate as some stories (like [b:The Time Traveler's Wife|14050|The Time Traveler's Wife|Audrey Niffenegger|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437728815s/14050.jpg|2153746]) but instead manifests as a dream world when Kitty goes to sleep. It is fun. But in the end it does not live up to the "amazing" hype that I heard about it.