Thank you Harper Muse and NetGalley for the ARC of Bookish People by Susan Coll. I love stories about books, reading, and especially book shops. This fits in all these categories. Sophie Bernstein is a 54 year old that owns a bookstore and it has just become overwhelming. We get to see the ins and outs of running a bookstore and just how much work goes into it. The relationships the staff have with each other are very special and Coll does a great job of describing them. Most people become close with co-workers so this is something most can identify with.

Witty and full of dry humor, Bookish People has a fun cast of characters and plenty of subplots. The latter kind of made it a tad confusing for me but nevertheless I enjoyed this quick read.
The laugh out loud parts were my favorite, but I also liked the quiet nod to rediscovering the world around you with the help of friends, acquaintances, and authors at Sophie's bookshop.

Fiction books about books and the cute cover really got me for wanting to read it asap and this book right here.

As i was diving into the pages, the character development and the plot feels flat and mundane to me. I feel joy when the first chapter hits, but the pace is so slow 😭😭. I think it’s better to add such subplot that give thrills or anything so it won’t miss the delight in the book!
Thank you netgalley for giving me the e-arc!!

I think, like most people, I was drawn in for two reasons.

1. A love of books. A book about books? Great!
2. The cute cartoon cover.

While point one obviously delivered, I think point two is where this book was let down. That’s absolutely nothing to do with the author and more so how it’s being presented. In an age of Emily Henry and other cutesy cartoon rom com covers, you can’t simply slap one on and call it a day when it doesn’t fit the genre. It sets false expectations.

The book itself? The writing is engaging and there are loveable characters and moments I enjoyed. All together though it felt like a slog to the finish. Like the general consensus, the switching POV was fairly disorientating.

I think there’s a huge amount of people who are going to love this book but may not be the people who will be drawn in by this cover.

Thank you to Harper Muse, NetGalley and Susan Coll for a digital ARC in return for an honest review.

Am I the only person drawn to books about books? Fiction about a bookstore? Count me in.

As someone local to the DC area, it was nice to read a book that so thoroughly described some of the regional settings. But on the same hand, I worried that this book will be quickly dated - if in fact it isn’t already. From current (now recent past) events, such as the Charlottesville rally attack, to naming athletes long gone from a team, there was just something that I couldn’t get past. I think it had to do with these specifics not being necessary for the plot. Had this book leaned more political, or into a plot where timing and current events were necessary to set the scene, then it may have made sense.

But let’s talk about by favorite scene perhaps ever SPOILERS AHEAD- the chaos of the Chaucer poetry reading, Florence running in in a leotard and matches, Clemi essentially tackling her, Sophie shooting her self in the foot, and then beep boop boop Kurt Vonnegut Jr riding by on the Roomba. Pure comedy.

**I received this advance copy free from Harper Muse, HarperCollins via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

All it took was the title. Bookish People. I saw it on NetGalley and had to read it.

That may be kind of sad, but I just knew that the people within its pages would be my kind of people, and I was right.

Bookish People by Susan Coll introduces us to Mrs. Sophie Bernstein and her bookshop in Washington DC. The cast of characters is your usual suspects: the manager who has been working there far too long, the overworked events manager who is always frazzled with a very full email inbox, several teenagers who love reading--you know the crew. Sophie, unbeknownst to her, suffers from near crippling anxiety due to *gestures vaguely at America today* and she becomes somewhat of a secret doomsday prepper.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, and while I did find Clemi to be interesting, unfortunately this story kind of fell flat for me. It was enjoyable enough that I finished it, but I struggled. It took me days to finish what should have been a ~4ish hour read, because I kept having to put it down--the story just didn't capture me, mostly because it got very rambling, very often. For example, there were entire pages devoted to vacuum cleaners and ovens. I get what the author was trying to do there, underlining the stress that the characters were under and making the reader feel their almost manic desperation, but it was too rambling that it got to be exhausting.

It felt very low stakes, and there was never really a climax of the plot. It felt more like you were sitting in on a week in these people's lives, and while it was admittedly a shitty week for the bookstore, it was also pretty mundane.

Even though it wasn't my cup of tea, Bookish People did give me this beautiful, so relatable quote: "She sometimes thinks the world divides into two types of people, those who think books are for reading when there's nothing else to do, and those who avoid other things to do in order to read books--and unsurprisingly she's in the latter camp, but really, is that so awful?"

No, no it's not. If you're in any reading camp, you should give Bookish People a chance--it may be right up your alley.

I'll leave you with a Doodle joke, as just about every one of Bookish People's "End of Day Reports" includes one:

I drew my dog while I was on a boring phone call and I'm really proud of it!
It's a golden doodle.

I really struggled to get into this book. I couldn't find the narrative off the bat and I think that made it difficult to enjoy.

I really wanted to like this book, as a bibliophile and also someone who has expierienced grief, but the shifts between characters felt clunky, and I don't think the narrative really hit its best moments until about 70-80% of the way through the novel. I think with another round of editing and perhaps some additional insight into each one of the ladies, this could be a much stronger text.

~ NET GALLEY REVIEW ~

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

But my opinion is don't bother with this one. I did not like a single character and none of them felt built out nor was the story really that wrapped up at the end. The book feels like a pot of water that's warming, warming, warming and then BAM it's boiling and splish splashing over the pot and leaving water stains on your stove. In other words, it's a stressful read. You have Sophie who is losing her brain after her husband's death and thinks it's ok to build an annex of sorts for herself like Anne Frank. Then you have Clemi a bookstore events manager who truly gets steamrolled throughout the whole book that you'll eventually shake the book out of frustration because she just needs to yell at people. You have another kooky character Florence who....honestly, I'm not sure the point of her. And then we get a few chapters of a cancelled poet's POV where the moral is "give men a chance to correct the narrative." I think the intention was more - hear both sides of the aisle, have discussion etc. etc. but it just fell flat.

Anywho, I wanted more out of this book but just didn't get it.

A quirky read, set in the book shop that Sophie runs. She is struggling after losing her husband, and is surrounded by a cast of interesting characters. A fun read, told from various points of view.

A solid 3 star read, nothing super special about it, but it was overall enjoyable. The characters and storyline were very chaotic, but in a good way!

Sophie Bernstein is an independent bookstore owner who is burned out on books. She is mourning the death of her husband, the loss of her favourite Manager and her only child’s lack of aspiration. At the same time, poet Raymond Chauser is releasing a new collection and there are rumours going around that he caused his wife’s suicide. Sophie demands her Social Media coordinator, Clemi, cancels Raymond’s upcoming event in the store but Clemi refuses. She is determined to find out if Raymond is her biological father. What does the future hold for this threesome of characters?

I have to fully admit that I did not love this book. I am normally allllll about books about books but this one just did not hit the mark for me. I found flipping between each of the characters' perspectives to be confusing. I felt that there were too many characters and I couldn’t really keep up where each one was in the story. Unfortunately the writing felt all over the place and I struggled with connecting with any character. I wanted to love this book but it just felt flat to me.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Muse for the opportunity to read this book.

I love books about book lovers. At parts I really started getting into it. The book had many directions in which it went and I felt like it was overwhelming. Also, there was a lot about vacuums. I would read another book by the author as I feel there was so much potential.

This was an interesting read full of complex characters. So many book readers imagine working at a bookstore to be the ultimate paradise... This book complicates that dream.

I ended up DNFing this novel. I really wanted to love it but I was just not enjoying it. I got to about 50%.
What I enjoyed:
-The setting in the bookstore
-Michael the son
-The discussion about Sophie's dark thoughts
What I didn't enjoy:
-I was struggling to read the book as I could not find a central point or plot as to what the story centered around
-There were too many characters and it was hard to follow.

I won't be posting on my socials about this one.

Bookish People is a standalone women’s fiction novel by Susan Cool. It’s a story about
charming, with witty dry humor and a dash of quirkiness. A character driven story about “bookish people” whose lives are interconnected with an independent bookshop as an appealing backdrop. It was a quick read that made me laugh but also faced more somber topics such as grief of a spouse.

Bookish People

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review


This book is the story of a bookstore and the different people who work there. It stars Sophie, an older woman who owns the store and is dealing with all sorts of grief and difficulties, and several other interconnected characters.


This book was so slow. It was slightly painful to get through. It also had like... no plot? I could not really tell you what the main point of the book was. There were several small storylines that interwove, and while those stories were fun and sometimes interesting, I needed more to keep me engaged. (There was a lot of time spent talking about a tortoise and also a vacuum cleaner)

The writing style was interesting and was engaging, almost reminiscent of Fredrik Backman, but the lack of plot simply made the book difficult to read and power through. The characters were interesting, but there were too many to track. Also, I am still confused about the entire antisemitism plot and how it was meant to tie into the story as a whole

PG+

Setting : Book store
POV : 1) Book store owner,Sophie
2) Book store employee, Clemi
Sophie is a 54 year old, recently widowed book store owner. She seems to be obsessed with breaking news stories and her perceived decline of civilization as we know it. Her quasi solution is to transform a hidden nook in the book store into her own personal fall out shelter. She is so preoccupied with this project that she is not fully available to anyone around her.
Clemi is a twenty- something book store event coordinator. She loves her job but feels overwhelmed at work and in her personal life.

I always looked forward to ready Clemi's view but initially struggled to connect with Sophie: which is odd considering I am nearly the same age as this character. Sophie just comes across as a scared,scattered woman. This seems especially odd since she is a business owner.

To the author's credit there is a wonderful cast of supporting characters that propel the story quite nicely. ( My favorite are probably the vacuum cleaner and the tortoise.) There are ocassionsal "End of day reports" that are little nuggets of happiness,too.
There are crazy ,chaotic situations that are hilarious .
Overall it a charming book, that truly hits it's stride about 75% of the way in.
3 1/2 rating

verbal-humor, situational-humor, contemporary, fiction, small-business, burnout, frustration, bookseller, books, angst, writers, wry-humor, grieving, ageing*****

The characters are quirky, and the humor had me alternately snurfling and laughing out loud. No way I'd try to summarize because my overwhelming response is laughter of one sort or another. FUN!
I requested and received an e-book copy from Harper Muse via NetGalley. Thank you!

Thank you to netgalley, the publisher and Libro.fm for my ALC, of BOOKISH PEOPLE in exchange for an honest review. This book published August 2!

I LOVE books about books and books that take place in bookstores. They are so fun! Unfortunately, this one fell kind of flat for me, and by the time I got to 73%, I was just not interested in finishing it. I think I wanted more romance involved, and this one just doesn’t have hardly any romance in it, at least not enough for me to keep reading. Just because it was a miss for me, doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it!