Book Review: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

My Rating:

2.5⭐

Thirty two-year-old Nora Stephens is a literary agent by profession whose life revolves around her work. Unlucky in love (she compares herself to the perpetually dumped city slicker whose partner travels to a small town and falls in love with someone else), her only family is her happily married younger sister Libby. Nora takes time off from her hectic schedule to travel to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina with Libby who is pregnant with her third child and wants to spend some quality time with her older sister. Unbeknownst to her, Charlie Lastra, a book editor from New York is also visiting his family in the same small town. Charlie and Nora are acquainted and have interacted in the past but that’s about it. As the story progresses, they are brought together by a professional assignment (Charlie starts editing one of Nora’s most successful client's upcoming novel) and sparks fly!

I generally enjoy rom-coms (both books and movies) but I don’t read them too frequently nowadays. Occasionally I treat myself to one in-between other reads. So I’m careful to pick and choose. First and foremost, given the plot, this book should have been at least 20 percent shorter. The banter between the two main characters and the bookish conversations were very entertaining. I especially loved the “tropey” discussions and how the characters poke fun at themselves and their situations akin to the tropes in romance novels. Good writing there! Falling in love with each other was pretty easy (not much in the enemy-to-friends-to-lovers progression here) for these two characters. While I love stories about mature adults falling in love, slow and steady instead of the insta-love trope, I found the repeated trysts with them behaving like hormonal teenagers making out anywhere and everywhere they can amusing at first but it eventually became tiring and hard to digest. I mean these people are consenting adults, what’s with all that? They have great chemistry -we get that! I found the constant references to how Nora’s being a city girl has shaped her life repetitive. I loved the tender and loving relationship between Nora her sister and I could sympathize with how her protectiveness towards her sister as a child continued into their adulthood and how difficult it is for Nora to somewhat let go and think of herself after so many years of prioritizing her sister. But Libby is a married woman with two kids and another one on the way and in a good marriage, no longer a teenager who Nora is responsible for after their mother’s death. After a point, their dependence on one another felt suffocating.

Julia Whelan’s impeccable audio narration made a great companion to this one and made it relatively easier for me to get to the end. I didn’t feel engaged or invested in the love story and the narrative failed to hold my interest beyond the initial 25 percent of the novel. While there is a lot I liked about Emily Henry's Book Lovers (small-town setting, a mostly-likable cast of characters, people who love books, rescuing a bookshop, some good dialogue, funny moments and of course, a happy ending!) somehow it wasn’t a great read for me. I know mine is a minority opinion. I really wanted to love this book more than I did!