DID NOT FINISH 44 percent

This was tedious. I got up to 44 percent and nothing was still happening outside of people being the most twee ever and a pie in the sky discussion about love, fate, and books. I just couldn't force read anymore and I threw in the towel.

"The Little Village of Book Lovers" follows a young girl called Marie-Jeanne in the 1960s in France. Marie-Jeanne has a special connection to Love. Love narrates the story of Marie-Jeanne and others around her and just kind of makes you want to shake them.

Marie-Jeanne is written as too good to be true and her "gift" started to make me roll my eyes.

Love was annoying. There I said it.

The other characters are written very poorly and to the point of repetition. Yes, I get that Marie-Jeanne's foster mother really does love her and her husband and she's scared to tell them so. You now how I know that, the author said this about 1,000 times in the 44 percent of the book I read.

The flow was just awful. I don't know how much the book shows of Marie-Jeanne's life, but it was a slog of a mess to even get to 44 percent.

I could not stay awake while reading this book. Multiple time over multiple days, I'd try to read and just fall asleep.
The book is about a baby girl who is physically touched by love. Because of this she can see a glow around a person which is their love for someone else. Meanwhile her father starts what is essentially a bookmobile.
The story was not at all what I expected it to be. I never thought it would be so boring.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book and to the publisher for an early read of this ARC in exchange for a review.

I think this book is just a little out of my normal so that's why I didn't enjoy it. I loved tbe concept though. There's so many good messages behind the plot and dialogue.

4.25/5 stars

This was a bit different from my normal book leanings, but I really enjoyed it. It was unique as it personified/gave actual voice to emotions/traits/experiences (i.e. Love, Death, Charm, Lust, Fate, etc.).

With connections to The Little Paris Bookshop, this story takes place in a small village in the south of France (1960s) and is centered around a young girl named Marie-Jeanne who is marked by the touch of Love as a small infant. As she grows, she realizes that she can see the shining marks that Love leaves behind on each person in her village and how those lights become brighter as they are nearer to those who are meant to be their soulmates. And even though tragically Marie-Jeanne cannot see her own light, she begins her journey as a matchmaker.

Along the way, her foster father Francis begins a new job venture, operating the area's first mobile library. Traveling by car and horseback through the small mountain towns of the Nyons region, Marie-Jeanne and Francis begin to see how books truly bring folks and their communities together. Some books can lead to love, others to character growth and still others to new ways of seeing life in general.

This book had qualities of a parable, a poem and even a touch of the best kind of rom coms. The writing flowed beautifully, often lyrically poetic in its passages, and the words were simply a joy to take in. I embraced and rooted for all of the characters, but it was Marie-Jeanne who stole the show for me. Sweet but with backbone, fearless, humorous and dedicated, she is a force of nature and a force for all that is good.

I found this book an enjoyably quaint and heartwarming experience and would recommend it to anyone searching for a lovely, feel-good story.

My sincere thanks to the author, NetGalley and Ballantine Books for providing the free early arc of The Little Village of Book Lovers for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

This was my first book by Nina George and it was written beautifully. It did start off a little slow, but then it did pick up. Marie-Jeanne was born into love and she now helps others see love between themselves. I really enjoyed how the book was written in different POVs and loved how the characters grew throughout the story. The setting of rural France, the bookmobile, and the passion for books was very enjoyable. Also, the cover is beautiful and definitely drew me into wanting to read this book.

Thank you NetGalley, and Ballatine Random House for this ARC in exchange my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the digital ARC. This review is my own opinion. I fell in love with the description of the book and was so excited to read it. Unfortunately, I just did not enjoy it. I loved the beginning of the book in which Marie-Jeanne was touched by love. The ability to see the light of love was bestowed upon her, a gift that she used to match people together. It soon became a heavy read, one that needed my complete attention and my attention span did not cooperate. I did not finish the book. I realized from the first few chapters that I was in over my head. This book will undoubtably be "all that and more" for others so I will give it 3 stars.

Thank you for this book Netgalley and publishers.

I get overexcited about books with "book" or "book shop" or anything book related in the title and then...I discover they're a historical fiction and I struggle to read it. This was one of those and I did not finish it. I am sure it is a great book if you enjoy that genre, my sister has enjoyed this authors other books, but she likes this genre.

This is a companion novel to George's book The Little Paris Bookshop.
Marie-Jeanne is a young child with a special gift. She sees glows around certain people—not like halos, more like spots of glimmer, on one person's fingertips, another's shoulder etc. it takes a while for her to realize that these are indications of Love, and that these areas glow more brightly when a person's true love is in close proximity. So Marie-Jeanne plays matchmaker, all the while waiting for her own true love.

This book is so poorly written that I would give it 0 stars if I could. Save your money; there are much better books out there.

I loved the prose of this book as well as the mystical quality.. I loved that it was mainly narrated by Love. And i loved the story itself.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I don’t know what makes a book feel European—maybe it’s the lyrical nature of word arrangement, the inclusion of the metaphysical, or the whimsical nature of characters. Whatever it is, this book has it in spades. I expect that folks will fail to carry on to the finish with this one because of the aforementioned qualities. Sticking with it, is worth it. The gradual revelations are worthy of the time and effort we can afford to this little text. Nina George weaves a marvelous tale with many moments for deep contemplation of the human need for and reaction to love, the narrator of this text.

I read 27% of this book and for the first time ever, I am abandoning a NetGalley ARC. The book cover is so cute and enticing and the description really made me want to read it. I know other reviewers have loved the book but it just isn’t for me. I’m finding no plot and it’s just plain boring. I will not be placing reviews elsewhere as that’s not fair to the author but I do appreciate the ARC from NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine Books.

What a lovely, pastoral idyll of a book! I would like to be in the south of France now, please. While I haven't read "The Little Paris Bookshop", the book this one is a companion to, this one can stand on its own pretty well.

The Little Village Of Book Lovers
Nina George
3.75⭐️

Pub date: 7/25/2023

This is a story of an extraordinary girl Marie Jeanne who has the gift to see the marks Love leave on people - special lights that glow when a person's soulmate is near. And as she grows up, before she even realizes, she has been bringing soulmates together. All this possible because of her father's mobile library. Marie Jeanne has noticed that books seem to play a role into her matchmaking. What will become of her venture and will she find her own partner when she has no love marks of her own?

This book has anthropomorphic characters, with Love, the Olive Tree, Wisdom, Death and all the other nontangible things and nature given human attributes. Love is the narrator of this story. It's slow paced, just day to day lives of people in France up until the middle part where the mobile library was established and then Marie Jeanne (MC) discovered herself and started her "tasks." It's a little hard to get into since I like faster paced plots. But this is definitely a good read if you like romantasized descriptions of a small town and the day to day lives of French people in the 1960s. I can visualize it well and have this warm feeling especially when they talk about books and bread. The author has written the setting very well. There are also a lot of profound and literary thoughts and conversations between the characters about books... what they are and what they mean to people- which I think a lot of us would appreciate. There are good insights and lessons about books, love and happiness which I actually believe I can apply well into my life.

Overall, this is a heartwarming story. It's very lovely towards the end.

I'm giving this perhaps a higher score than I might otherwise, because I felt that Nina George does something wonderfully creative here. She somehow combines a run-of-the-mill romance with an allegory. It doesn't work seamlessly, but she is trying something. I'm willing to give her points for--unlike a lot of what I read--trying something. There are moments of Neil Gaiman here, but I think that George is very much herself and I appreciate the way her unique writing style pulls a bunch of disparate elements together (for the most part).

George's novel 'The Little Paris Bookshop' was one of the first books to make me full-on ugly cry; I loved everything about it. This continuation/origin story grabbed me from the first page, smashed up my heart, and put it back together. An orphan story plus books plus France? What's not to love? I'll be recommending this book in the 28 July episode of my podcast 'The Library of Lost Time.'

Author Nina George keeps working the same theme from slightly different vantage points; she is deeply engaged with books and their effect on readers. In THE LITTLE VILLAGE OF BOOK LOVERS: A NOVEL she embraces magical realism and really writes about Love (a character) falling for a young orphan by accident. That the orphan becomes somewhat magical herself and involved with books is almost secondary to the plot. Although, in any book by George, books are almost characters in the story. This tale is almost a fable, written as though in any time period, with concepts meant to be of everlasting value. I didn’t find this book to be quite lyrical enough to be charming and so it felt just a bit off for me. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing - Ballantine Books for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was written beautifully and poetically. But perhaps maybe too much that I could not connect with the story or characters.

The extra characters like Love and Death were confusing to me and took me out of the initial plot.

I have never read a novel by this author but I will give another one of her books a try.

I had read another book by this author and it was great, I was expecting the same type of writing style and storytelling in this one. It wasn’t so. The writing style of this one is about love, not necessarily a story about a specific person in love, but gives several light stories of falling in love. It describes the how, the why, the mysteries and the observations of a young girl watching people change or give off glowing lights of love when they do things or are around someone they love.
I felt the story was missing something and it never truly got to the depth I had expected it to reach. I will still read Ms. George’s book, but for me, this was not one of her best.
I received an ARC from Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for my unbiased review – This one comes in with 3 stars.

With so many twists and turns in life, we all need to be reminded of what true love looks like. Found in the most unlikely of places, The Little Village of Book Lovers reminds us of the magic and whimsy that accompanies true love.

Whether it be friendships, parents to their children, or couples - everyone's hearts will be warmed by this sweet tale!!