Don’t bother.

Ugh. This book had such a promising premise. A woman who loves books finds out her local library has to close for a time for renovations so she opens a small lending library in her home that spirals out of control. Totally up my alley. Then I got about 30 pages in and knew this was anything but my kind of book.

I can’t even give this a legitimate review because I disliked it so much. Honestly, this book reads like white saviorism infused with a weird romance that lacks any sort of romance or chemistry. Our protagonist reads like a Zooey Deschanel character with someone LESS self-awareness and her whole personality can be summarized as quirky for the sake of being quirky. The side characters are so underdeveloped that one of them is killed off and I felt nothing. Even our protagonist seemed to get over the death in a handful of pages which is ridiculous.

Also this book has a weird gross feeling regarding women and their “need” for children and babies that made me very uncomfortable. Babies aren’t treated like human beings in this, rather more like accessories to fulfill some weird dream our character has. I stopped reading halfway through and skimmed the rest just to make sure it didn’t suddenly get better. It didn’t. Don’t bother.

Title: The Lending Library
Author: Aliza Fogelson
Format: Paperback
Pages: 300
ISBN: 9781503904019
Three Descriptors: Insensitive, Try-Hard, Awkward