Okay, this is a charming story of a young woman who doesn’t hide her anxiety nor allow it to completely control her but who nonetheless has it. One criticism I’ve read about this characterization is how can Nina be shy of meeting her new family yet be able to function socially. It’s possible. I’m this way. I can be comfortable in a crowd that isn’t focused on me and yet get nervous about having attention only on me. She has a job she loves pushing books and she’s organized several book clubs including one for ten year old, book loving girls who still haven’t been sideswiped by the world yet.

It’s funny without being too precious though there are plenty of POV shifts and quick switches. However those are easy to figure out and didn’t bother me at all. There is a lot of pop culture in the story so I’m not sure how well that will age but I will admit to laughing at how the story also pokes fun at a lot of that so maybe it will weather better than I imagine.

I enjoyed the characters and how they were developed. Even the tertiary ones were clear cut and memorable and this was a book that I inhaled quickly. I do wish there had been a little more romance – though Nina – for a brief moment – comes out of her introverted shell to make a Lloyd Dobler public declaration during the quiz final.

This one has lots of feels and heartfelt moments but manages to keep from becoming too sugary sweet with them. I also had a blast reading Nina’s day planner pages and “hearing” from Phil the cat. B+

WHEN BOOKS FIX BRAIN CHEMISTRY

After living in the feel-good novel, THE BOOKISH LIFE OF NINA HILL, for days, I recall what certain books do for me. They make me happier!

PLUNGE BACK IN
I finished the last page and wanted to plunge back in because I so loved the world author Abbi Waxman created. I adore the character of Nina — whip smart, funny and endearing — and her quirky friends, the sunny book-lined guest house she lives in, her job at the bookstore, her amazingly sweet boyfriend.

HEY, DOGS!
I was left feeling as Nina described her best days: “On the way to work, she felt pretty chirpy, and put in her earbuds and pretended she was in a movie, smiling at all the people who passed her and saying hello to the dogs.” Yes, I wanna say “hey” to everyone today because, well, Nina made me do it.

EMBRACE
Why do some books impact us so? For me, this one describes a young woman sure of herself in ways I never was at that age. Yes, she struggles with anxiety and introversion, as I did, but she embraces who she is. How I once did pre-Ophelia at 10.

NEURO-BOOST
Also, some of the lines are so fun they just up my serotonin:

“Driving through Los Angeles in a fast car with a genius researcher is not enjoyable, unless you are one of those people who drinks five Red Bulls and snorts coke before getting on the front seat of a roller coaster and sticking both arms in the air.”

ADIEU
So I’ll say merci beaucoup to the author and if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading back to that guesthouse in East L.A. with Nina and company. Adieu, y’all!

Pub Date 09 Jul 2019.

Thanks to the author, Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

#TheBookishLifeOfNinaHill #NetGalley

Abbi Waxman's "The Bookish Life of Nina Hill" is a comic romance set In Larchmont, California. The twenty-nine-year-old central character is a voracious reader, cat-fancier, and someone who revels in the joys of solitude. She works in Knight's, an independent bookstore, competes in pub trivia quizzes, and prides herself on organizing her time with to-do lists.

Nina's mother, Candice, is an itinerant news photographer whom Nina rarely sees. Everything changes when the well-heeled William Reynolds (whose existence Nina knew nothing about) passes away. He had an affair with Nina’s mother that resulted in Nina’s birth. After learning this crucial detail about her background, the heroine discovers that she has half-siblings and other relatives whom she has never met. As if all this isn't dizzying enough, Nina finds herself falling for Tom, a handsome and goodhearted member of a rival trivia team.

There is a great deal of amusing banter and, on a more serious note, allusions to adultery, family dysfunction, and the prospect of Knight's going bankrupt. The tale's central theme is that, although it may be comforting to stick to familiar routines, life can be more fulfilling when you share it with someone you love. "The Bookish Life of Nina Hill" is a pleasant but lightweight diversion that moves along breezily to its predictable conclusion.

Stevie‘s review of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
Contemporary Women’s Fiction published by Berkley 09 Jul 19

As a general rule, I love women’s fiction set in and around bookshops and libraries, and I also have a bit of a thing for trivia. So this book with a heroine who works in a bookshop, adores reading across all genres, and takes part in quizzes when not attending or organising book clubs looked to be just my kind of thing. I can also empathise with her discovery of a whole collection of other people who are related to her but whom she’d never heard of much less met before, since something similar happened to me in my teens, though in nowhere near as dramatic a fashion. Nina Hill is far more introverted than me, but that makes for far more humour than if she’d been outgoing and fully prepared for dealing with all these strangers that share some of her genes.


Nina is a compulsive planner, and most chapters open with that day’s page from her organiser (I need to download the template that she uses!). Most of the items on her various lists are explained as the chapter unfolds, but I had fun guessing what some of them meant, even as I occasionally struggled to decipher the handwriting on my not-very-large screen. Most of Nina’s lists concern her tasks for the day and her scheduled activities: almost every day has both work and leisure activities already booked in. At work, Nina is in charge of various book groups for the younger customers of the bookshop where she works, and outside work she is a member of several monthly book groups and a successful quiz team – so successful they’ve been banned from at least one local league.

The quiz team leads to Nina’s first conflict. She finds herself attracted to a member of an opposing team, but convinces herself, without even speaking to him, that a relationship could never work, since not only is his team the arch-rivals to hers, but he seems to mostly know the answers to the sports questions – and Nina is not at all sporty, beyond taking various gym classes. Besides, her planner is far too full to fit in dating as well, and she has a perfectly good cat to keep her company at home.

Nina’s second conflict comes in the form of a lawyer, who brings news of her father’s death. Nina isn’t particularly bothered since her often-absent photographer mother had always told her they were better off without him. Now it turns out that he was not the loser Nina had imagined, but a wealthy man with children from all three of his marriages, ranging in age from considerably older to considerably younger than Nina herself. Not only that, there are nieces and nephews – some also older than Nina – as well as great nieces and great nephews. Nina is rather overwhelmed, but is helped out by the first nephew she meets: an anthropologist, who draws helpful diagrams of the relationships and turns out to like office supplies almost as much as Nina herself.

The rest of the family also share various traits with Nina, and none of the adult members seem to have an entirely good opinion of Nina’s father. Most are welcoming, although one is openly hostile, seeing Nina as a gold-digger, even before anyone knows the contents of her father’s will.

Nina’s adventures in negotiating the complexities of her new family, finding out that her rival in quizzes is actually a nice guy, and dealing with the possibility of her bookshop being forced to close due to her employer’s difficulties in paying the rent, were a delight. I was very much taken with the narrative voice of this book, which reminded me of Jenny Colgan at her best and provided an excellent commentary on the area where Nina lives and works. I’m very keen to read more by the author, and can see myself buying this particular book in print so I can read it over and over again.

Grade: A

First things first, I LOVE the chapter titles.
But, this book was an unexpected contraction to me. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I guess when I thought “bookish” I thought “nerdy-socially-awkward-outcast” (even though I’m bookish and I don’t consider myself that way...) and when Nina Hill wasn’t portrayed like Eleanor Oliphant or May Attaway, I was kind of turned off by her. She grew on me, though. She’s quick, sort of funny, and actually rather relatable. She’s social enough that I connected with her lifestyle -with her trivia and her book clubs- and the book is written so beautifully, I found myself really enjoying it. I also really love the way she lives in Los Angeles, but in a small neighborhood within the huge city, so it all feels more intimate. There’s kind of a lot going on, though, with her discovering a family she never knew about and finding love while navigating her day to day life which includes a lot of visualization and organizational practices. Overall, it’s nice to have a more modern-woman twist on the awkward-book-nerd character. Nina participates in instagram and follows (but not always participates in) trends and I really grew to love her.
“She looked up Couch to 5k plans ... then she found an article that said walking was as good as running and felt good about saving $100 by not buying running shoes.”
This book is very upbeat and entertaining. I’d recommended it to basically any of my girlfriends.

Nina Hill. She's that bookworm we all relate to. Whether we're actually an introvert with anxiety or picture a wall of books and scheduled reading time on Thursday nights there is something about Nina that will draw you in.

She's that typical "quirky" character in a romcom. But the one that you're like "yes, I actually want to be your friend." Because she's not like "roll your eyes girl that takes off her glasses and looks the same but is now considered beautiful." Instead, Nina is into Harry Potter and all the fandoms and having book clubs with pre-teen girls at the book shop she works at and she's dating and getting the same disgusting d*ck pics you didn't ask for either.

Nina is enviable, though, right? Because she works at a bookstore and she seemingly has a pretty well-planned lifestyle filled with awesome nerdy things like trivia nights and book clubs and sometimes fitness. And her mom? Well she travels the world taking world-famous photographs. She's not really around but Nina's not any worse for wear because of it.

Her dad? Well. That's a funny story because she didn't know even the name of her dad until a lawyer came strolling into the bookstore last week to tell her he had died and she needed to attend the will reading...

with the rest of her family...

make that three families since her dad has been married three times and also apparently made Nina on the side.

Nina's life is about to get a little more disheveled and a lot more messy.

And you can enjoy every minute of it. Because, first of all, it's not you or me that has to go through this. And second, because author Abbi Waxman makes every single word of this novel delectable.

Nina has a job in a bookstore, is on a trivia team and has a cat named Phil. When a father she never knew dies, Nina finds out about a family and she has to decide what she is going to do. A whole new life whether Nina wants it or not.

Abbi Waxman’s The Bookish Life of Nina Hill was one of my most anticipated reads of 2019 and I’m thrilled to tell you that it’s everything I hoped it would be and more! As a booklover and an introvert, it’s by far one of the most relatable books I’ve ever read and the protagonist Nina Hill is a treasure. I could easily fangirl about my love for this book all day, but instead let me just share some highlights. If you like what you hear, be sure to scroll down and enter my giveaway for a finished copy of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill:

Nina Hill is of course my absolute favorite part of the book. She’s a huge book lover as well as extremely introverted. I mean, this girl is unapologetically books over people all day long and I love her for it. Almost as strong as her love of books though is her love of organization and planning. She likes to be in firm control of every aspect of her life and is the queen of planners. She also freely admits that fellow control freak, Monica Gellar from the sitcom Friends, is one of her personal heroines. She’s also incredibly socially awkward and is most comfortable with just a few treasured friends in her life. Growing up an only child, it was very easy for Nina to keep her world small and cozy, with plenty of time to keep her nose happily stuck in books.

Waxman does a fantastic job creating the character of Nina, that so many book lovers and introverts will find immensely relatable. I know I wanted to be friends with Nina from the opening pages of the story. She’s adorably quirky and sounds like my kind of person. I also felt tremendous sympathy for Nina when she learns that the father she never knew has died, not so much because of the death itself, but because he apparently had several ex-wives, a whole slew of children, grandchildren, etc. and all of them want a piece of Nina. Couple her new extended family with a cute guy from trivia night who wants to ask her out, and it’s suddenly a very uncomfortable environment for Nina to find herself in. After all, this is a girl who pencils in Nothing on her calendar and once Nothing is penciled in, that’s exactly what Nina wants to do.

In addition to Nina, Waxman has also filled The Bookish Life of Nina Hill with a fantastic cast of secondary characters. Her coworkers at the bookstore where she works, her trivia teammates, her nephew Peter and her siblings Archie and Millie are all just so much fun to read about, especially as Nina awkwardly interacts with each of them. The thoughts that go through her head sometimes are truly just laugh out loud, as are many of the things she actually says. I also adored her budding relationship with rival trivia player, Tom. They’re so cute and awkward together and every interaction just had me grinning from ear to ear, especially as their teammates try to not so subtly play matchmaker. Oh and I can’t forget Phil, Nina’s cat. I swear that cat has some of the best lines in the entire book (all in Nina’s head of course).

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill just really captured my heart on so many levels. I loved that Nina was so easy to relate to and that I could see so much of myself in her, and I also loved that the book had so many layers to it. It’s a book about the importance of family and friends, and it’s a book about finding love even when you don’t think you have room for it in your life. If you’re looking for a book that will leave you with a smile on your face, I highly recommend The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.

Utterly charming novel about quirky and just a bit different from most girls. Nina Hill is very satisfied with her ordered life until it is upset by discovering that she has a large family living just near by . She also meets a cute and smart guy when she was not looking for a romance. Nina likes her routine, her job at a indie bookstore and coming home to her cat Phil. When Nina is contacted by a lawyer representing her deceased father who she never meet, she discovers a raft of half-siblings and finds out she is a great-aunt! Meanwhile, Tom the cute boy who is a trivia whiz just like Nina is shaking up her life. Readers of The Rosie Project and The Kiss Quotient will enjoy this title.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 / 5

Novels about books and bookworms have to be one of my favorite things in this world, and The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman just reinforced that.

What it's about: Nina Hill works in a bookstore and lives a generally quiet life. She enjoys her alone time due to her anxiety, and she spends most of her time either in the bookstore or the guest cottage she lives in with her cat Phil. She isn't lacking for friends that aren't books though, and she loves her trivia nights and book clubs at the bookstore. But her world is about to be turned upside down when she finds out her dad, whom she never knew, just died and she has lots of family that all live in or near LA, right next to her! It also doesn't help that she finds herself attracted to an opposing trivia team's captain - Tom. Nina is about to go way out of her comfort zone and find out what it means to have a huge family that loves you and a partner who accepts you as you are.

I absolutely adored The Bookish Life of Nina Hill! This book kept a smile on my face the whole time I was reading it and I laughed out loud more times than I could count. I loved Nina so much for how real she felt to me. I thought she was incredibly relatable, and I saw a lot of myself in her. And who wouldn't love a book that mentions Book of the Month? The only thing that I thought was a bit of a bummer is that all of the characters talked a lot like Nina which I can't imagine would happen in real life. The characters may have all sounded a bit the same to me, but I mostly overlooked that since I loved this book so much.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill is going to be perfect for both book lovers and women's fiction lovers alike. Nina is funny and sarcastic, and you can't help but love her. I think Waxman did a good job talking about Nina's anxiety issues instead of just writing her off as a quirky character. Anxiety effects so many people and I really appreciated Waxman's approach to it in this novel.

This is also a pretty quick read, and I managed to get through it in just about 4.5 hours even though honestly, I never wanted it to end. The chapters were all pretty short, and I also really liked the day planner pages in the book! I couldn't always read Nina's writing, but I still loved it.

Song/s the book brought to mind: Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows.

Final Thought: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill is warm, fuzzy, sarcastic, witty, and is sure to give you all the feels. It is such a touching and fun read that I highly recommend it to all bookworms! Lovers of reading will agree with so much in this book and be able to spot things they can relate to. I couldn't have enjoyed this author's writing style more and I am so incredibly excited to read more from her (thank goodness she has 2 other books)!

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advance review copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

Nina is an introvert who works at Knights bookstore in Los Angeles, competes on a Trivia team and lives alone with her cat Phil. When Nina finds out that she was put in the will of her late absent father, her life becomes a bit more complicated.

This book was full of witty dialogue, pop culture references, and fun facts. I was definitely laughing out loud at times and rooting for Nina along the way.

I appreciated the extent to which the author went to make books a part of this story. There are some books with bookish titles that end up not having a lot to do with books, but this book was different. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill has it all bookstores, bookshelves, book clubs, book facts and even a nod to the Book of the Month Club. If you are a reader you will probably appreciate Nina. I know that her character felt a little too relatable at times, especially when it comes to her love of books and her anxiety.

My main complaint is that the dialogue between Tom and Nina seemed a little forced at times.

Overall, this was a fun and enjoyable read and I would recommend it!

4.5 ⭐️

Nina Hill is a bookish introvert, and she's just fine that way, thank you very much. She has her job in the bookstore, her bar trivia group, and her book clubs to keep her busy. But she develops a mad crush on one of the members of a rival trivia group (You're a Quizzard, Harry is one of the best trivia names in the history of trivia) and he kind of has a mad crush on her, too. If navigating a new crush isn't hard enough, Nina also discovers that her father - who she's never known - has passed away, and put her in his will. Now, she's inherited a large, contentious family that she's a little freaked out by. What's an introvert to do?

The Bookish Life of Nina HIll gives us geek girls an introverted protagonist who loves books, her cat, and isn't a wallflower. She's had boyfriends, she likes physicality without the whole cuddling and staying over business; she is good with people, but doesn't necessarily like being around them all the time, and she's friendly, hilarious, and appreciates a good trivia match. Her mother left her to be raised by a nanny, so sure she has attachment issues, but she's faring pretty darned well. When she and her trivia crush take things to the next level, it freaks her out - she has a lot going on at the moment - and pulls into herself. She's realistic, she's likable, and she's just trying to navigate a messy, chaotic life when she's been used to quiet and order. There are awesome book references in here (I think I need to go through the book again and make a list to display at my library), to make any book lover smile, and there are great little touches that reveal so much more about Nina's character, like her feminist book club for tween girls, her relationship with her talking (internal dialogue, only) cat, and her "just kidding" sense of humor throughout the book. I thoroughly enjoyed The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, which would also make a fun book club choice (questions included at the end).

Super cute book with a neat storyline. I found Nina to be relatable and quirky. I believe her life can be used as a guide on how to and not to navigate through life with anxiety.

As a book lover, I couldn't help but relate with Nina Hill, the ultimate book nerd, and her page centered world. Unlike her, I grew up with a huge family, so all of the chaos, squabbling, hugging, and evil eyes have always been part of my environment. However, I can't say that I've ever gotten used to it. It's just too much sometimes, and being thrown into it without preparation . . . I certainly feel her confusion and anxiety. Is it all worth it? Ultimately, yes, but one has to wonder at times.

This instantly accessible and comical tale is told with great wit and sympathy. Abbi Waxman paints a picture that is detailed, warm, loving, and continually entertaining. You'll want to be Nina's next new sister, niece, or cousin!

What can I say about this book other than I absolutely loved it? It is so darn funny and relatable and so very real feeling. Who doesn't love books? Have a crazy messed up, complicated family? Who doesn't feel anxious about things and well...did I mention the crazy messed up, complicated family?


There is so very much to love about this book I truly could go on about it all day. But in short, this book, this story and all it's fun quirky characters, reminded me why I fell in love with Waxman's debut years ago. Her wit, witty one liners, family dynamic, slow burn romances, and memorable characters, all make this one story you truly, don't want to miss. So much wonderful goodness packed into this read. Pick it up, give it a spin, you won't be disappointed.

Book lover Nina is perfectly happy with her life, thank you very much, and she doesn't take well to change. Some say she's boring, but she gets all the excitement she needs between her job at a bookstore and her highly competitive trivia team. But when she finds out the father she never knew has died, she gets thrown into a chaotic family of half-siblings, nieces, nephews, and more. Can her real life be more exciting than her books?

Charming! This book was a delight, and I loved being inside Nina's brain. She's funny, smart, and relatable, and it was really fun to watch her navigate the whirlwind of finding her lost family. The dialogue really shines here; Nina and her friends are sure to make you laugh out loud. Any book lover will thoroughly enjoy this story.

I absolutely adored this book!! No other book could have hit that sweet spot and felt like I was reading a book about myself or my dream self!

Nina Hill works at an independent bookstore and as an only child of a single mother who has recently passed away she is finding solace in her job and her life. Through glimpses into her planner, the reader gets an idea for who she is and oh that made me wonder what people could learn about me from my own planner! She schedules reading time (so do I), she makes lists (so do I) and you can see her life's ups and downs all through those pages.

When her dad becomes known to her through his death, it sends her life into a tail spin with new family members and a different life with chaos and people she never imagined. Although this storyline has been seen before, it felt fresh and new and was just so entertaining.

I gobbled this book up in one day by the pool and it was the perfect summer read to just enjoy amongst the chaos of life. Abbi Waxman has sky rocketed up to a favored author in my book.

I am an introvert who can social for periods at a time. Reading The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman was like getting reacquainted with a long lost friend. When I found out the synopsis of a book-loving person who grew up with a book always in her hand, I knew that I had to read this story. I had to get to know Nina Hill and understand why she is how she is.

Nina Hill grew up following her mother, a world renowned photographer. As her mother traveled the world absorbing the world, Nina traveled inhaling books. It was the constant in her childhood. Raised by a single mother, Nina has grown up to be a woman of her own choosing. She is a bookseller for Knight’s, attends trivia at her local bar, and has everything that she has wanted, revolving books. But her father, whom she didn’t know about until recently has written her in his will, leaving behind a plethora of family. They’re local, and they’re ecstatic to meet her. Her perfect world is unraveling as we speak.

Nina is that old friend that you need, who will tell you all of the best things and support you with the worst. It was interesting to see the extent of her introvert-ness. It was fascinating to see how much I connected to her. But as I was reading, I fell in love with her story, her dreams, and heartbreaks, and just knew that I saw myself in her. I loved this story for that connection alone. I related to Nina on so many levels.

And Tom? Oh, once you meet Tom, you’ll understand.

I loved this story for the ups and downs, because that is life. I loved this story for the amount of interesting and surprising characters that I met. And mostly? I loved that it was realistic and in-your-face. Because this life is about how messy life is, but also how beautiful it can be.

I enjoyed this so much, and I hope you do as well.

*Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.*

Nina is a single woman in her late twenties. She works in a bookstore, participates in a trivia league, and enjoys her quiet life. When she's notified that the father she never knew has died, she suddenly finds herself with a family and the drama that comes with it. As for her dating life, Nina is attracted to a fellow trivia player, and she starts to finally feel close to someone.

Nina has always enjoyed being alone and she suffers from anxiety when things become too chaotic for her. She stays very organized and her life is well scheduled. When her life starts to not go according to plan, Nina learns she needs to have some better coping skills The new people in her life may be just what she needed.

A light and fluffy contemporary romance. I especially enjoyed Nina's nerdy and quirky personality, and could relate to some of her traits. Humorous, charming, and entertaining.

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

How could I resist a book about a bookworm?! And that cover.. my goodness it's just perfect!!

I have been a steady fan of Abbi Waxman since I read Other People's Houses so naturally I was ecstatic to get my hands on an arc.

I just loved Nina's character... how can anyone resist her whitty, smart, funny, cute, and nerdy personality. Nina definitely is busy working at a book store and enjoying all her trivia clubs she's involved in. Nina unexpectedly gets news one day that she has an entire family that she's never known about. She grew up with an absent mother and was primarily raised by a live in nanny.

Nina has been included in her deceased father's will... and man oh man does that open up Pandora's box! Nina starts to get to know her new family but of course with that comes along drama to the max. I definitely enjoyed seeing the more serious side of Nina battling demons of anxiety of her own through this crazy thing called life.

There is also a sweet mix of romance to this story but this is unfortunately where it fell a bit flat for me. I felt at times that the story was at a stand still and wasn't much going on. It lost my interest a little bit. Was hoping for a little bit more from Waxman.

Overall, I loved Nina's character and know that many of you will just fall in love with Nina's bookish world!!

I loved all the book references too!!

3.5 stars.

Thank you so much to Berkley and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Publication date: 7/9/19
Published to GR: 7/7/19