I was immediately drawn to this book because of the cover. I'm a sucker for any book that takes place in a bookshop, and it was an added bonus that the story took place in France. I loved learning more about Maxime's history and why he is so prone to rage. I was surprised with how quickly Sarah and Maxime fell for each other because I felt like they didn't really interact for the first part of the book. Overall this was a great close-proximity romance!

I wanted to like this book - loved the title and the cover. But sadly I didn't.
I found the male character, Maxim, was just an arrogant, horrible man with no redeeming features. I found the female character a bit wet and drippy. The story was completely predictable. Of course, books in this genre are often a bit predictable - you can sometimes figure who'll end up together by the end of chapter one - but if you like the characters, this doesn't seem to matter. Unfortunately, I just didn't like these two.

I want to start with saying I enjoyed the concept. The execution is where I struggled with. I enjoyed the main female character and her relationship with the people in the town. The main male character I struggled with and I felt there were some plot issues that maybe could have helped improve his character. If you like bookstores and romance you might enjoy this!Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the chance to read this!

read it really quickly, so it definitely grips you right from the beginning! I especially loved the display of Sarah’s joy of reading. I wish certain topics were talked about more through the book and the background characters were explored more! I really enjoyed Damien and I wish he had been given more of a background, although I often skim and maybe the author did talk about him. I had a nice cry during this book which I always enjoy, although trigger warnings are necessary for this novel, so future readers should be warned about mentions of suicide and violence. The translation from French to English was so great half of the time I forgot that the book took place in France! The biggest struggle for me with this romance is that I felt as though the characters' backstories, while acknowledged they did not give me a satisfactory feeling as though I knew the character in and out. If you’re looking for a quick read and a nice cry I recommend this book.

The Bookshop of Forgotten Dreams is a sweet but simple rom-com. The sweet girl falls for the bad guy after circumstances lead to them being roommates.

The small town and bookshop setting were the strongest part. All the side characters made the town come to life. Sarah’s love for books and attachment to her bookshop felt so relatable.

Personally though, I needed a bit more character growth and development for relationship to make sense. There’s a good foundation for both main characters, but the way they change for each other felt more forced than them putting in the work for it.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-read opposites attract romance than you’ll probably enjoy this, although be warned it gets a bit steamy!

you had me at the title of Bookshop Anything with books in the title and I am there for the ride to enjoy no matter the journey it will take me on. I love book themes. Was a good read.

Mein Leseerlebnis

Ein tolles Cover und ein ansprechender Klappentext - was sollte da schon schiefgehen? Leider eine ganze Menge.

Vor dem Lesen wusste ich, dass Max als Charakter wahrscheinlich viele Ecken und Kanten haben würde (was ein “bad boy actor” eben so mit sich bringt), ich habe allerdings nicht erwartet, dass er mir über große Teile des Buches hinweg so unglaublich unsympathisch sein würde. Ja, seine Kindheit und Jugend waren alles andere als idyllisch, eine gewisse Freundlichkeit anderen Menschen gegenüber sollte aber dennoch möglich sein. Stattdessen verhielt er sich wie ein Arschloch, dem die Gefühle anderer vollkommen egal waren. Ich dachte eigentlich, dass wir solche “Helden” in der Vergangenheit zurückgelassen haben.

Ich habe auch nicht erwartet, dass Cole bis zum Ende des Romans relativ blass bleiben würde. Im Endeffekt hat Sarah mich durch die Geschichte gebracht und das war auch nicht immer perfekt für mich. Generell fühlten sich die Charaktere zu flach an, ich konnte mir keinen einzigen als echte Person vorstellen.

Darauf aufbauend konnte mich die Liebesbeziehung emotional nicht berühren, aber immerhin hat mir der Schreibstil der Autorin gut gefallen. Und auch ihren Humor fand ich insgesamt unterhaltsam.

Gegen Ende der Geschichte wird eine tragische Entwicklung in die Geschichte geworfen, mit der ich so meine Probleme hatte. Ich mag es nicht, wenn Nebencharaktere nur eingeführt werden, um sie danach zu “opfern” und als Katalysator für die Entwicklung der Hauptcharaktere zu diesen.

Betrachte ich mein Leseerlebnis, so bin ich positiv gestimmt ins Buch gegangen, war dann aber schnell ernüchtert und enttäuscht. Da war mehr drinnen. 🖤🖤

Für wen?

Wenn euch die Beschreibung von Maxs Charakter eher anspricht als nervt, könnte der Roman gut für euch funktionieren. Mit der Einschätzung von Max steht und fällt das Leseerlebnis.

Sarah lives for books and Maxime lives for his career of actor. Five hours apart get to zero when a common friend got the solution for Maxime who has problems with the law. He is supposed to live withhh her and help her. Sarah needs money to run the library. The problems are many but where is the will all can be done.
There was a bit of slow reading at first, but after half the book it was more intense and I couldn’t put down. Pleasant surprise. I smil very much because and Maxim tries to seduce her with books and books, quotes. Some situations were really in tune with the special atmosphere. Only a bookaddicted can understand
Special thanks to Netgalley.com and Harper. Collins, another chapter for ARC in exchange for an honest review

Genre: Romance | Romantic Comedy | Adult Fiction

Release Date: Expected 18th June 2021

Publisher: One More Chapter | Harper Collins

Translated from French

Content Warning: Explicit Sexual Imagery, References to suicide, physical violence.



Sarah and Max live different lives in different worlds. She's hardly ever left her village and the quiet bookshop she spends all her time running - so there's no way she should ever have met Max. An actor with the whole world in front of him and adoring fans desperate to just look at him would never have even looked at the little book shop until he got into just a bit too much trouble and got stuck with community service helping Sarah repair the struggling store.

Pretty soon, Sarah realises that nothing she could've read would help her prepare for this. As her peace and quiet is shattered and Max becomes more abrasive by the second, she's starting to think they're never going to be on the same page about anything unless he can learn to think about someone for just one moment.

The Bookshop of Forgotten Dreams was a light summer read full of cuteness and fun. It was a classic retelling of the favourite troubled bad boy meets plain quiet girl but with plenty of books thrown in for good measure. Told from both their perspectives in an easily readable way, I found myself drawn to Sarah but at first hating reading any of the chapters told from Maximes point of view, and while I warmed to him I was always slightly unsure if I was ever on his side. Their relationship was very predictable and appeared almost out of nowhere so I found it very hard to get invested in their stories.

However, I loved hearing Sarah talk about books - her passion and her love for saving and rehoming stories was beautiful and I am a sucker for books about books. This was very much an easy summer, light read with some steamy romance thrown in for good measure.



RATING: ⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Emily Blaine, One More Chapter and Netgalley for this ARC in return for an honest review.

I read The Bookshop of Forgotten Dreams over a couple of days. It’s a nice, pleasant story but I wouldn’t say it was my favourite book of the year. I didn’t particularly like Maxime’s character and thought his budding relationship with Sarah just seemed to happen overnight. It was over the course of two months but I just felt that initially it was rushed. Having said that I found it to be a sweet book.

Thank you to NetGalley, One More Chapter and the author for the chance to review.

Maybe I'm getting a little tired of the trope, but this was a miss for me. I know patrons who will still love it, so we will buy copies for the library. Just not really my cup of tea after all.

I adored this book. Maxine and Sarah are two people with so much to give thinking that they won’t find someone and when they do it is filled with angst and laughs and just a wonderful story that I recommend to anyone in search of a good book.

This book made me happy. Like really happy. I absolutely adoorredd the characters, and very much related to Sarah... The romance was so cute, and the banter was really good! However, I do feel like the last 30% of the book was pretty rushed, and there was a conflict that felt like it came out of nowhere. We didn't get to know the characters involved in it that well, which made it hard to sympathize with Maxime. But all in all, this was a really good read!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this.
I know that this book has been translated into English, however there were still a couple of moments that probably didn't come across the way they should've. This is also true of some of the dialogue, as some conversations flow perfectly.
Maxime came across as very bad tempered and at times irredeemable, and his and Sarah's love for each other kind of sprang out of nowhere. I guess I wanted to see more of the romance developing.
Also, Maxime and his issues... well, if it didn't take long for Anita to help him, why didn't Mathilde? She spent so much time reading him the scripts, wouldn't she have just taught him herself? Strange really.
Was still a good read about books and life in general.

As a booklover myself I really wish that I enjoyed this book more than I did. But I had almost constant issues with the story and the writing. For one thing Max is a horrible human being. He is incredibly self-centered to the point of almost being a sociopath. He talks to his agent and his lawyer like they are dirt beneath his shoes. On top of that he is prone to violence at the drop of a hat. He has gotten into multiple scrapes with the law, and even states himself “I like to fight“. After he is arrested his agent and lawyer work out a plea deal for him to do community service at a bookshop, and the owner Sarah doesn’t seem particularly bothered by his penchant for fighting.

When I requested the book I didn’t know that this was originally written in French, and then translated to English. This leads to my major issue with the book, which is that there are entirely too many exclamation points in the book. Most of the sentences with exclamation points shouldn’t have them, it should just be a period. This changes the entire tone of the book and makes it really jarring to read, because my brain keeps putting a certain inflection on those sentences that shouldn’t be there. I don’t know if it’s something that’s common in French or if it is from the translator, but it’s a shame that there wasn’t an English editor reading this after the translation who could have caught this.

Thank you to NetGalley & HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The Bookshop of Forgotten Dreams was a cute read about a famous bad boy actor, Max, that needs to get his self-sabotaging under control; and a bookshop owner, Sarah, that is knee deep in broken pipes and debt. A last chance packaged as community service has the actor spending two months at the bookshop where his relationship with the owner turns romantic. But this setup has a rapidly approaching expiration date and both of them aren’t exactly sure how to feel about it.

There were a lot things I enjoyed about this book. I liked the characters, their personalities and interests. I liked the community around the bookshop and the tight knit group of Max’s confidants. I thought the progression of Max and Sarah’s relationship should’ve been more drawn out in the pages. It felt like it just dropped on our laps after they had one chat. I wanted something a bit more there. They both seemed too invested in each other. There was also a lot of back and forth with dialogue being casual and then very proper for the same character. It seemed out of place and didn’t flow well. There was also a lot of exclamation points in dialogue. It was a little unsettling to read that and have so many conversations with ! As if they are always yelling or high pitched. That shouldn’t be used so liberally. The bones of the story is good though and the romance is cute with it’s devotion and sweeping gestures.

I would recommend this book to day dreamers. People who go for the grand gestures. Those that don’t judge a book by it’s cover.

This was quite a predictable rom-com type book, one you can just read and not think much about. Unfortunately I really disliked Maxime and felt his redemption and change was a bit rushed. As soon as he found Sarah he changed. I also didn't care much for Sarah.

This novel was translated from French to English and there were a few issues with the translation, things that didn’t made sense but I was able to figure out by context.

Overall it’s an enjoyable summer book that ended up being a 3.5 star for me.

3.5 stars

The Bookshop of Forgotten Dreams is a short and easy summer read, which is perfect for those looking for something lighthearted and cute that will give you all the feel goods.

The story alternates between Sarah, the introverted owner of a small bookshop that has recently suffered some flooding, and Max, a bad boy actor who must help Sarah around the shop as part of his community service project. The two could not be more opposite, but despite that the two of them together kind of works.

Overall, I thought it was a cute book, but the pacing was a bit off for me. Sarah and Max’s relationship needed a bit more fleshing out in my opinion, but otherwise I enjoyed it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was quite a predictable rom-com type book, one you can just read and not think much about. Unfortunately I really disliked Maxime and felt his redemption and change was a bit rushed. As soon as he found Sarah he changed. I also didn't care much for Sarah.

Thank you for the E Arc NetGalley and One More Chapter. In exchange for my honest review. I wanted to like this book but I felt like I had read it before but a much much better version. One of the main characters, Maxime, is completely and utterly unlikely able and just gross. The other, Sarah, is much more likeable and you root for her but damn she makes bad decisions. The story seemed rushed and I had a heck of a time finishing it. I felt like the book ended how they thought we would want it to but yuck, wasn’t a fan.