crosberg's reviews
1307 reviews
The Boy With The Bookstore by Sarah Echavarre Smith
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I did, and I'm truly bummed about it. My favorite part was definitely the description of the food that Joelle made for her bakery (I'm a sucker for ube anything!) and while I really wanted to like the snarky-guy/sunny-girl dynamic between Max and Joelle, I ended up being bored and very frustrated quite a bit. I love a good trope, but this book is so chock-a-block with tropes and unfathomably improbable behavior that I could no longer suspend disbelief. The fact that a professional baker brought her pet hamster to her place of business where she makes food pinged my "really???" flag early on, but what followed was worse:
The worst part was that the book wanted me to sympathize with a landlord.
Spoiler
both Max and Joelle turning their phones off to manufacture miscommunications, Joelle's best friend being the one to confess Joelle's love for Max over the phone (I would kill my own best friend, to be honest), the contractors "mistakenly removing a wall" so their businesses could join upSpoiler
...I could go on and on, but basically this book skidded right past "cute coincidence" to deeply contrived. I say this as someone who absolutely adores fan fiction: this felt like unpolished fan fiction, particularly the way bodies were described and the random details that didn't add to the story. I wish we'd gotten more of Joelle's family, I would read a book about her parents, aunt, and grandmother in a heartbeat.The worst part was that the book wanted me to sympathize with a landlord.