Reviews

Gripping and very enjoyable read full of detail and historically accurate, set in Oxford (OUP) during WW1. As the men of OUP go to war the women take up better positions. Twins Peg and Maude live on a narrowboat, and Peg begins to see a better life for her and other women, but it is a long and difficult journey with set backs and difficult decisions.

lediamond4's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I read “The Dictionary of Lost Words” two years ago and absolutely loved it. A huge bookworm growing up, I went through a long period of time where I rarely read anything. I like to credit “The Dictionary of Lost Words” as being one of the first books to get me back on the road of reading. So I was really excited to read her follow-up book, “The Bookbinder.”

Unfortunately, this just didn’t live up to my expectations. I found the characters, especially the main protagonist Peggy, extremely difficult to connect to. For some reason that I can’t quite grasp, I did care about their relationships with each other whether it was family, friends, or. . . otherwise. 👀❤️ the characters themselves were rather dry and uninteresting, but I thought that the connections they had and made throughout the course of the novel were fairly well done and endearing.

The plot was tedious. Clearly a well researched book, but it could have been 100-150 pages less and I think it would have been a better read. It meanders through the years of World War I, and while I understand the importance of telling the stories of those who fought their own personal wars on the home front, I had so much trouble being invested. The conflicts were pretty weak and never seemed to settle long enough to be an actual part of the plot. I feel a little guilty in saying this but I also thought that the bookbinder work was repetitive and in general pretty dull. It was obviously supposed to be a huge part of the book but it just seemed to slow the pace of an already slow moving story.