Review by clairebartholomew549 - Battle of the Bookstores

clairebartholomew549 's review for:

Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady

4.0

emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is a fun and breezy read. Josie and Ryan are rival bookstore managers: Josie’s bookstore specializes in literary fiction, while Ryan’s exclusively sells romance. They both lowkey resent each other, a dynamic that becomes even more toxic when the owner of both their bookstores tells them he is merging their stores and only one of them will get to keep their job. Josie and Ryan begin a fierce competition, but they don’t realize that they’ve been anonymously DM-ing other for months.

There were parts of this book that felt pretty trite to me, and although the characters were often tongue in cheek about the various tropes going on, sometimes it felt like a bit much. But overall, this was a really fun read. There’s a lot of talk of different books and authors and bookish things, which I enjoyed, and the characters are interesting and dynamic. I always love an enemies-to-lovers story, and it was enjoyable seeing the sparks fly between Josie and Ryan and both of them slowly reconcile their misconceptions about each other with the reality. Overall, I enjoyed this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review!

Content Warnings