Sara, a
young bookseller from Sweden, has for quite some time been exchanging reading
experiences with Amy, an elderly woman from Broken Wheel, a small town in Iowa.
When she loses her job and is trying to figure out what to do next, Amy invites
her for a longer stay. But when the young European arrives, her pen friend has
died and she is left to herself in Amy’s house. Soon she finds out that the
inhabitants of this run down place are very lovely and treat her as one of
them. Nevertheless, they all have their secrets and little burdens to bear.
When she feels useless in Broken Wheel and especially in Amy’s house, the idea
of a bookshop, the love that brought her there, comes up and soon there is a
new attraction in town.
I really
likes the story as a modern kind of fairy tale which is sweet as sugar and in
which you just have to love the characters with all their defects. As a binge
reader myself and especially fond of classics, reading Amy’s letters in which
she discusses and recommends novels, where she compares plots to real life is
real fun and you can easily find yourself in the novel. The plot, obviously, is
not very realistic, but this is not necessary for a feel-good-novel just to
enjoy.
When the
centre of the plot turns around books and the love for them, I was really into
the story. Slowly the focus shifts and the love stories, one of the protagonist
and another in a secondary plot, I lost a bit of interest because the novel
lost of substance here and became more an average love story. Nevertheless, a
story you can easily indulge in and enjoy a couple of fantastic reading hours.
