Book Review: The Littlest Library by Poppy Alexander

My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐

Orphaned at a young age, our protagonist, thirty-two-year-old Jessica “Jess” Metcalfe was raised by her maternal grandmother, her loving “Mimi”, who instilled in her a love for books and reading. Having encountered tragedy at such a young age, Jess prefers her life to be predictable and safe. However, when tragedy strikes and Mimi passes away from a terminal illness and a few months later Jess loses her job as a librarian at the local library where she had been working for the past eleven years, Jess is forced to rethink her life and start over. A series of events has Jess moving to the village of Middlemass, purchasing the quaint but rundown Ivy Cottage which comes with an abandoned red phone booth on the property. With the support of her immediate neighbors, among whom is single father Aidan Foxworthy, the phone booth is transformed into a little lending library stocked with books from Jess and Mimi’s personal collection. As the story progresses, we see how the “littlest library” brings a community closer and how Jess forges new friendships and finds her place in the community, and entertains the possibility of a new romance, gradually opening up to new experiences. But as her savings start to dwindle and her little library faces opposition from a local group, her need to secure her future and find a new job becomes more urgent, she is forced to make some difficult choices – to leave her new home and the people who have become like family or to retreat into a predictable, safe( and boring) life to which she was once accustomed.

“The only answer to the fear of losing everything is to open up to the possibility of happiness and the possibility of loss. Two sides of the same coin, isn’t it? Better that, than refusing to be happy just in case.”

With a promising premise and a quirky cast of characters, Poppy Alexander’s The Littlest Library is a sweet story about friendship, kindness, community and of course the transformative power of books. The romance between Aidan and Jess was more of a secondary thread (at times, it felt like an afterthought) that did not feel integral to the central plot. Therefore I would not categorize this as a “romance” novel. I loved the idea of a little library in an abandoned phone box and enjoyed reading about how the “book-starved” community embraces not only the “littlest library” but also the newcomer who manages it into their fold. I also adored the literary references and how Mimi’s personal notes/ words of wisdom in the library books have a positive impact on the lives of others. There are many characters and quite a few sub-plots woven into the narrative. Though parts of the narrative were quite engaging, it was hard to plod through the repetition and slow pace in some segments. Stories such as these are almost always predictable (no complaints about that!) so it's important how we get to end and that's where this book falls short. I love books about books and libraries and while that particular angle was well-executed, a few of the other threads in the story felt rushed and resolved without much happening in between (a lot happens behind the scenes and the outcomes are simply conveyed to the reader). Overall, though a nice story , it was just an average read!