A review by bzliz
Must Love Books by Shauna Robinson

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I read this after enjoying Shauna Robinson’s The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks and I wasn’t fully prepared for the ride this time. Maybe I should have looked into it a little more but this errs much more on the side of literary fiction rather than romance. 

Nora Hughes has been working at Parson’s Publishing for 5 years and has endured business restructuring that meant her favorite coworkers had been let go and she had to take on enough work for three employees, plus the added humiliation of a pay cut. She’s already been spiraling into depression but it keeps getting worse when she can’t make ends meet and she takes on a part time position at another publishing house, all while a promotion at Parson’s hinges on signing an author she’s somewhat romantically involved with. 

Of course you should expect that at some point everything is going to come crashing down but I found myself flipping ahead a few pages so I could adequately prepare myself for the inevitable fallout. Nora made some pretty bad choices but I still found myself rooting for her to get better. It’s really hard to climb out of a depression pit. Beth is a wonderful side character who reminds me a lot of my own version of Beth who was crucial in helping me get back of track. I’m ambivalent about Andrew; he’s written as being incredibly supportive of Nora but I’m not sold on it. He was a little too understanding when he got the full story. 

I appreciated the realistic ending and that
Nora didn’t rush into something more serious with Andrew. She needs to work on herself before involving anyone else. Also, I don’t think any real job would let you stay- even if it meant changing your role- once it was known that you had breached conflict of interest.


Content warnings:
Mental illness, thoughts of suicide:
The whole book deals with Nora’s depression which prior to the events of the book had led her to contemplate suicide. On the page, she thinks of those times but does not have ongoing thoughts in that vein and she never makes any plans or attempts. If you are triggered by any discussion of suicide, even glib thoughts, skip this one.
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