The Reading List

In this charming story, formerly non-readers from a suburb of London form meaningful & unexpected relationships as they discover the power of books at a local library; as challenges arise in their lives, they see that books can be a source of refuge, sage advice, and most importantly, a point of connection with others.

Of course, I love the message of this book. Clearly, I'm a big reader, and I love books for all the reasons that this book explores. Books are empathy machines, allowing us to understand people who are vastly different from us. Books are nostalgia. Books are an escape from reality. Books connect us more deeply to our emotions. Books allow us to reflect. Books change our perspective and offer great wisdom. Books are adapted to some of the best movies. And books bring us together.

As much as I love all that, and as much as I like the general plot of the story (young, troubled woman becomes friends with elderly, lonely man – a classic trope), this book lacks character depth and the plot is forced. Some plot points are so undeveloped that they don't make much sense, and the reader is forced to make some big assumptions. The tone is cutesy, but very intense moments feel at odds with that tone. The writing is exceptionally basic, so it's tempting to skim. Overall, just an okay reading experience for me, which is a shame given the whole point of the book.

CW: death of family members, cancer, divorce, suicide, mental illness/agoraphobia

I've been a huge fan of Ellery Adams' Secret, Book and Scone Society series for a few years now and I loved the idea of bibliotherapy in those books. So even though this one is a contemporary and I hardly read this genre these days, the theme of books attracted me immensely and I knew I will like it.

And I was totally right. This is probably the only kind of contemporary I could have read in these times. The writing is easy to read and I found myself immersed pretty quickly. But it's also very slow paced, so anyone who is more used to faster paced books might not enjoy it. This is also not very plot focused, so the story just meanders through the everyday lives of the characters and we never know where this is going or if there is a larger purpose to the story, but this type of storytelling didn't bother me. I actually liked that it was mostly low key and I could breeze through it slowly.

However, it's definitely the themes of the book that resonated with me the most. The idea of books and reading helping with healing during bad times in our life is something that I truly believe in, and it's always amazing to know that there are many others like me. This story is a love letter to the power of stories - the ones where we feel like we are seeing parts of our life being played out in the pages, the ones where we find comfort and solutions within, the ones where the characters feel like our friends and we start caring for them immensely, the ones which give us the much needed catharsis to feel lighter - stories are beautiful and we can find so much good in them and I loved seeing all that adoration for stories reflected in this book. The other aspect of the book which I found very relevant was the importance of libraries as a community institution that needs to be preserved and how much we should push back against government's efforts to cut off access to public libraries. I know this is mostly a western issue because many countries in the global south don't have free public libraries, but it just means we should try for them to opened everywhere and fight the closures wherever we can.

The characters in this book were some I didn't like on first glance but they won me over slowly. Mukesh is a widower who is still not over his beloved wife and feels like he has nothing much to live for anymore. But he slowly realizes that he wants to keep in touch with everything that his wife loved, one of which is reading, and finally takes the momentous step of getting out of the house and into the library. Aleisha is a young girl who is reluctantly working the summer at the library because she needs the financial support as well as needs to get out of her house. She is also dealing with her parent's divorce and her mom's debilitating mental health issues and even though she hates her job initially, the library slowly becomes a much needed escape. Both of them bond over the common books they read, discuss them and find comfort in the lessons they learn in those pages, find new friends in the fictional characters, as well as form a genuine friendship between themselves.

We also meet many characters who don't appear for more than a couple chapters who also find some some sort of healing for their issues by discovering books and sharing that joy with others. I also liked Mukesh's family, especially his bookworm granddaughter Priya who felt like a mini version of me. Nilakshi is another of Mukesh's friends whom I adored because she was a widow too who had also lost her son, and she and Mukesh formed this beautiful friendship to confront their loneliness and it was lovely. Aleisha's brother Aidan is also has some presence but he is almost mysterious, that we don't know about him enough. But the most important side character I thought was Naina, Mukesh's dead wife, whose presence felt palpable and everywhere even if she wasn't living. The love she had for her family, husband, community and books all permeated every word in this story.

Overall, this was a nice read. If you obsessively love reading like some of us and totally believe in the power of healing in books and storytelling, I think you'll love this book. Just know that it's very slice of life without ever feeling like there's an endgame. I also happened to listen to the audiobook and I absolutely adored the three narrators. I particularly loved Sagar Arya who brought Mukesh to life with his narration. This was a nice respite in between my recent nonfiction binge.

Aleisha, a teenage librarian with an attitude and recent widower Mukesh bond over reading books off a reading list of unknown origin. Both are dealing with family issues. They meet when Mukesh decides he wants to read fiction to feel closer to his wife, so he goes to the local library and asks Aleisha for recs.

She is uninterested and unwilling at first but then she finds the reading list at a propitious moment, starts reading the first book (To Kill a Mockingbird) and passes it on to Mukesh. They form a two-person book club and read each book as Aleisha goes down the list and then recommends it to Mukesh. The rest of the story is seeing them deal with their individual family issues.

Mukesh is treated like a child by his three daughters who think he can't handle life without his wife. Aleisha is a child (teenager) but her and her twenty-something year-old brother Aidan are not allowed to be young because their mother is in the middle of a mental health crisis. Since their father is off with a new family, it falls to Aleisha and her brother to look after Mom.

The connection with Mukesh in Aleisha should be found with neither of them being allowed to act as their true age because of family dynamics/recent tragedy and the isolation this has created. The books are a form of escape as well as a way toward broadening their view points. Adams doesn't go deeply into any of this.

It is handled in a shallow, obvious way. Much of the dialogue reads like commercials for the books and told in such a way that a child could grasp it. “I learned so much from Atticus.” “This is just like when Jo was grieving for Beth.” It's stilted and not believable as two real people talking.

It is a very easy read, no challenging ideas and little plot. The sudden dark turn it takes is out of place in such a soft, mushy book. Adams didn't handle it or lead up to it very well. We didn't explore Aidan or his troubles enough to have his suicide mean much to me so it just seems melodramatic and just a device to give the book some plot or big event.

Adams could have taken another few passes at this book to add more depth and connection. Seems like a first draft rushed to publish.