Short Story Review: The Bookstore Sisters by Alice Hoffman

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐

“She was good at forgetting; she had practiced for years, and it was now a skill at which she excelled.”

A call for help in the form of an unsigned letter has Isabel Gibson hurry home to Brinkley’s Island, Maine to her childhood home and the family bookstore, years after she left her sister Sophie, with whom she has been estranged for years. Once an avid reader, her love for reading waned after losing her mother and after her father’s death she had been keen to sell the failing bookshop , a move opposed by her sister. In an unexpected turn of events, she is left in charge of the bookshop while her sister recuperates from surgery.

“Isabel remembered what books had meant to her so long ago, and she suddenly had a longing for all those fictional worlds that had helped her through the worst years of her life.”

As the story progresses , we see how Isabel reconnects with family, old friends ,the island, rekindles her love for books and the bookstore and comes finally comes to terms with the losses she has suffered.

“She was remembering everything. How love could change a person, how it could cause you the greatest sorrow or shelter you from harm.”

The Bookstore Sisters by Alice Hoffman is an emotional and heartwarming story about grief, family, community and coming home. In barely 34 pages, the author establishes the characters and their backstories and wraps it up with a sweet ending. I did wish it were longer though, because I would have liked to spend more time with the characters and maybe then the end would not have felt so rushed. But I truly I enjoyed the characters and their dynamics, the bookstore and the island and Hank the dog.

In short, this short story made my heart happy! This was my Amazon Prime First Reads pick for this month!