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A review by megansmith
The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
This book was just okay. This was a really lighthearted, quick read if you want something uplifting to enjoy.
I think personally, I'm kind of burnt out on the genre of books as a topic and especially books where they're getting assigned to a certain person by an older sage figure. I think the ones I've read recently vary in the structure but this general theme of "book giving and/or discovering a lot of people in the neigborhood and making a community" feels a bit overdone right now, and this book didn't stick out within that genre for me. The Reading List stuck out to me as a better example of the genre. This just felt really fluffy without much substance. The pockets where real life showed up still felt unrealistic, like it was a fluffy version of a dark topic still. IE where Effie leaves her husband, like that just felt like such a quick gloss over something so serious and also highly unlikely it would have easily gone down in that way? Or why did Schascha's father get zero punishment of any kind for almost killing an elderly man? No repercussion other than his daughter momentarily being mad at him? I like a good fluff book every now and then, but the diluting of real life in this book really took me out of the moment more often than not.
One other thing that also was just personally jarring, I can get by on books with a lot of characters, but adding in nicknames based on novels for literally all of them made it really difficult to keep track of characters! Like just mention it once who that person reminds you of, or don't even mention their real names, it's just way too much to add in to all of this. And then to top it off, Schascha's name being a nickname she gave herself too? . Just another thing that took me out of the moment.
I will say like, this book maybe just wasn't for me, I don't think its a bad book by any means. If comfort reads that really fluff up reality are your thing, then I think you'll like this! This is just my personal preference, I would lean towards other books in the genre / topic area over this one but, not a bad book by any means.
I think personally, I'm kind of burnt out on the genre of books as a topic and especially books where they're getting assigned to a certain person by an older sage figure. I think the ones I've read recently vary in the structure but this general theme of "book giving and/or discovering a lot of people in the neigborhood and making a community" feels a bit overdone right now, and this book didn't stick out within that genre for me. The Reading List stuck out to me as a better example of the genre. This just felt really fluffy without much substance. The pockets where real life showed up still felt unrealistic, like it was a fluffy version of a dark topic still.
One other thing that also was just personally jarring, I can get by on books with a lot of characters, but adding in nicknames based on novels for literally all of them made it really difficult to keep track of characters! Like just mention it once who that person reminds you of, or don't even mention their real names, it's just way too much to add in to all of this. And then to top it off,
I will say like, this book maybe just wasn't for me, I don't think its a bad book by any means. If comfort reads that really fluff up reality are your thing, then I think you'll like this! This is just my personal preference, I would lean towards other books in the genre / topic area over this one but, not a bad book by any means.