A review by spatterson12
The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick

3.0

This has been sitting in my TBR for more than a year because I was certainly judging a book by the cover. I was expecting it to be a little pretentious and more literary fiction with a monocle.

I had upcoming travel, so figured it would be best to pack this in my carryon for the flight and finally read it. Turns out it’s a really light read.

I can’t explain it, but reading The Messy Lives of Book People put me in the headspace of reading when I was in like 4th or 5th grade. Where the content is so light, the chapters fly by, and things just work out for the main character. There’s not a lot of depth or suspense. The logic isn’t really there and you’re just in the moment reading about these characters.

It was fine. I didn’t hate anything, I didn’t love anything. I could also sense some correlation with The Devil Wears Prada having watched that recently. A woman gets sucked into her job and starts to ignore her partner, putting her career before everything else. A woman of power is viewed as a terrible person to the outside, but has layers underneath that somehow everyone is secretly in love with (ehh that might skew from The Devil).

One thing that truly bothered me and why I marked this as a spoiler - how does Liv not know when the anniversary of her dad’s death was???

Liv is a maid for three different households, one being that of recluse author Essie Starling. Essie has taken a special interest in Liv often leaving Reese book club picks out for her to read. When Essie unexpectedly passes, it’s revealed that she has requested Liv to finish writing her 20th and final book.

Liv quits her other jobs and hides Essie’s death from everyone, including her husband and mother, for six months as she edits the draft and collects her checks. While writing the final chapters, Liv starts her own investigation to discover who Essie’s one true love was and finds a way to interconnect fiction and real life.