It's official... Kirsten Miller has become an auto-buy author for me. I gave her previous book, The Change, 5 stars and I am so happy to be giving this new release 5 stars as well.

This book is so incredibly funny. I mean, I was literally laughing out loud while reading this, but it also gets to be really dark and disturbing. Honestly, I'm glad that the author chose to incorporate so much humor within this book because without it I think that heavy subject matter would have made this such a bleak and depressing read.

This is a real time portrait of our current socio-political climate. The author makes no qualms about making sure you know that Lula Dean is a stand-in for a certain ex-president, right down to her orange hair and penchant for long winded speeches. The author used such an interesting approach for the story-telling in this book where each chapter is from the perspective of a different community member in this small Georgia town. These little snippets from everyone in town allowed for the author to really build tension and backstory for this big crowd of characters without overwhelming the reader with too much information too quickly.

The story does get pretty intense about 75% in when the tension and hate in the community culminates into a shocking act of violence but the author is able to handle that with sensitivity and a levity that quickly evens out the tone of the story. Now, I'm fully aware that the ending of this book may be a little over the top and saccharine but I think it was what we, as readers, needed at the end of this kind of story. There is so much hate and vitriol and disgusting behavior portrayed by so many characters in this book that it felt like a much needed reprieve to see things end in a happily ever after.

Now, realistically, that doesn't happen. This book is truly a bold faced commentary on our current ways of living. The author is not holding punches, she is not making you read between the lines, she is serving her opinions and commentary to you on a silver platter with sparklers. I understand that that may not be everyone's cup of tea. If you own a MAGA hat... you will hate this book. If you have ever used the term liberal snowflake... this author will really piss you off. However, I appreciated the matter of fact nature that this book used to present current social issues. The author's note at the end was also extremely important and definitely gave more insight into why the author chose to write this story and write it in the way that she did.

This book just scratched the right itch in my sociologist brain and I couldn't be happier with it. Also, I wish that I could have seen that Moxie story time play out in real life. One last warning, this book goes in very heavily on some really intense content and nothing is served with kid gloves. If there is something in the content warnings that is a hard line for you then please do not even attempt to read this book.

This book does an amazing job of creating intertwined vignettes about characters who interact with books (which some consider to be controversial) and shows a realistic effects of reading these books. One character reads “Are You There It’s Me, Margaret” to learn about the female experience of puberty. This builds to a complicated story of a small town’s struggle to interact.

If you are brave enough to read this book, you will be persuaded that books are not the enemy; ignorance is.

Highly recommend.

I have read a lot of new 2024 book releases this year from a wide variety of genres. Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller might be the most important of the many that I've read. It's also one of the absolute best.

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books takes place in Troy, Georgia where Lula Dean - the resident Karen - has recently started challenging school and library books. To replace the books she's campaigned to remove, Lula puts a selection of approved books in the Little Free Library in front of her home. However, someone else soon replaces Lula's conservative books with the ones Lula has fought to ban, sneakily hidden under the dust jackets of Lula's supposedly "wholesome" books.

In the book's first half, each chapter feels like reading a short story. Every chapter focuses on a different set of characters and how a book changes their way of thinking. The stories are all interconnected and merge in interesting ways as the book progresses but because of this setup, the novel is a fast-paced and fun read. I, for one, flew through this faster than I've read any other book this year! I could not put it down!

The story also has a light and humorous tone. The book deals with a multitude of heavy subjects but it never feels depressing or cynical. In fact, the story is full of optimism and hope.

The characters are all realistic and layered. As someone who lives in a small Southern town, some of these characters even feel like people I may know. I appreciated the understanding and compassion Kirsten Miller clearly took in writing these complicated characters. I especially enjoyed watching as several characters grew and changed thanks to the power of stories.

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller is timely, relevant, and inspiring. It's about the power of books and how information and education drive progressive change. It encourages positive action and understanding in the face of ignorance and hatred. It's a much-needed book that is funny and light while still taking on heavy political topics.

After reading The Change a couple years ago, I knew whatever Kirsten Miller came out with next would go to the top of my TBR. I’m happy to say that I enjoyed every single page of Lula Dean. It made me laugh, it made me sad, it made me think. It was full of unforgettable and charming characters. I liked how you got a snippet of what each character was going through and how the book they came across from the little library helped them through their situation. Totally wholesome and by the end I felt like I knew the whole community🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻 4.5 stars.

William Morrow provided an early galley for review.

Being a librarian, put library or banned books in a title and you have my attention. I was instantly curious about this upcoming release.

Firstly, each chapter is titled from an actual book title. It is a small touch that I can really appreciate. However, I quickly found that each chapter is sort of a vignette to focus on another resident and their dark behaviors that someone else, through the inspiration of banned books goes about trying to correct or compensate for. I get the concept that Miller is going for - it is all very topical for anyone who has been watching the news over the past half dozen years or so. However, for me, I found it got stale pretty quickly. I felt like I was scrolling through posts on social media with a quick stop at one before moving on to the next. I feel it was trying to hit too many areas rather than focus more tightly on a couple.

As a librarian, I am all for free expression and challenging the thoughts of intolerance, hatred and bigotry. Librarians are advocates of the "freedom to read" principal. I support that Miller's book wants to challenge all of these things and show a (fictional) town trying to be better thanks to the power of books. My concern is how her message will be received by patrons. Will it fan the flames rather then extinguish them? We shall see.

This book is so relevant to what is happening in today’s society. Kristen Miller does a wonderful job of tackling issues of misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, bigotry and others using incredible dialogue between the characters in the book. They learn from each other and most importantly from the books that Lula Dean is trying to ban.

I would give it a five star but the ending was a little eye rolling for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

I had high expectations considering how GOOD the change was.... and Kirsten Miller delivered once again. I LOVED THIS ONE! Overall, this is a relevant book, which makes powerful points about knowledge and understanding versus ignorance and it delivers a good message, especially at the end. I strongly suspect that it will be banned somewhere, probably somewhere Southern! I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to read it.

Thank you to William Morrow Books via NetGalley for the ARC!

I’ll keep it plain and simple. I could not and did not want to put this book down. I loved how tense, heartfelt, and connected it made me feel throughout my entire read. Normally, I don’t always read past the end of the narrative, but Kristen Miller had me hooked all the way to the end of the “About the Author” section. Book-banning, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and other issues in the book are not, as Miller writes, “No means unique to the South”, that they are “American problems.” I hope those who read this book walk away like I am, thinking of all of the banned books that changed my life and turned me into the person I am today.

I was excited to read this one but in the end it was just ok. There were too many characters, making tracking confusing. I had to go back and reread multiple times. Sometimes the story didn't flow and was largely disjointed. I considered stopping 3 different times, and while I am glad I finished, it was just ok for me. I think it's such an important topic and had been more hopeful I would enjoy it more.

The idea behind this book intrigued me - changing a small town through the books residents find in the little free library of banned books. While the ultimate messages of freedom to read, progress, inclusivity, and acceptance are all commendable, I found this book challenging. Likely this is because it was described as hilarious, which it is not. I found it mostly troubling and disturbing, even with the happy ending. Maybe it's because it hits a little too close to home for me as a librarian in challenging times, but the Nazi in plain sight, the troubled and ultimately violent recruit, the pettiness and judgment, the terrible husbands, stood out more than any humorous anecdotes. Also, there are a ton of characters and I kept losing the thread. I would not discourage anyone from reading it as it was good, just don't expect a comedy.

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books is a relatively quick read about a small town in the South, where the lines are clearly drawn between 2 factions of thought. The book is told with short little chapters from various viewpoints of people who live in the town, revolving around Lula Dean's recently opened little library, where someone has traded out her original books for banned books that her own committee recently pulled from bookshelves.
Overall, this is a pretty funny and enjoyable book, clearly with a liberal bend to it, which I don't personally find objectionable. The characters are pretty clearly drawn to be either liberal or conservative with little gray in between, and as mentioned before, various characters narrate each chapter, from both sides of the division. As with Kirsten Miller's previous book, this book was rich in humor and quotable moments. In fact, I was almost tempted to make notes for how to engage and debate with people who tend towards more conservative points of view. My one main critique would be the ending was just a bit TOO idealized and felt unrealistic, but perhaps the goal was to inspire the necessary changes to be made now so that this ideal future could be within reach? In any case, the book was a fun and thought-provoking bit of literature.
Thank you to BookClub Girl, William Morrow, and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books is a powerful, important and timely book, one of my top reads of the year. 

In a small Southern town, Kiersten Miller tackles book bans, censorship and fake news. Lula Dean's addresses the importance of access to information and who controls the narrative of history. It's about how education can combat hate, in its many forms. And it's about how one person's actions can have a snowball effect and bring about great change. Miller accomplishes all this in a book that is engaging and entertaining to read. I absolutely loved how we got many of the townspeople's POVs and how everyone is connected to the overarching story. 

Miller leans all the way in and she doesn't shy away from shining a light on hate in its ugliest forms: racism, white supremacy, homophobia, sexism and antisemitism, to name a few. I am Jewish and must note that Miller's treatment of antisemitism absolutely blew me away. Currently, antisemitism is at an all-time high and yet Jews are regularly overlooked in allyship. Antisemitism is often denied, ignored or justified. And so I am incredibly grateful to Kristen Miller for calling it out for what it is. I don't think I have ever felt so seen by a non-Jewish author. I was moved to tears.

Everyone needs to read this book. Yes, you, everyone! But don't worry, the story is great. You'll enjoy every minute of it.

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books will be out 6/18. Thank you to William Morrow Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

Clever and entertaining, I enjoyed the premise of this novel. It made me cringe in places, and laugh out loud in others. Unfortunately it felt a bit disjointed, in part because there were just so many characters to keep track of, and because there were so many hot-button issues being addressed.

LULA DEAN'S LITTLE LIBRARY OF BANNED BOOKS is a book that made me think, that made me angry, that made me laugh, and that made me want to read it again. As someone that is currently living through the book banning that is sweeping our schools, this book was one that hit close to home, but also demonstrated a profound knowledge of the human experience using book banning as a deeper reflection into the society in which we live. Overall, I found this book to be a masterpiece in satirical writing, character development, and storytelling.

The book follows a small town in Troy, Georgia where Lula Dean has created a firestorm over books. She gets the "inappropriate" books removed from the library and creates her own little library outside of her house, which she fills with books that she finds more appropriate. However, not everyone is on board with her ideas and they replace her books with "banned" books by switching the covers. The result is a book that tackles a variety of issues that deals with the cultural storm within our current society over the place of books and the ideas within them.

This story was masterfully told in an interesting way. The book is told through vignette-like stories that follow many characters. Through these multiple POVs, the audience sees them as they are: their mistakes, their hopes, their background, and their ideals and values all interwoven with the little library and its impact on these residents, both good and bad. And while this book is satirical in nature, it exposes a larger truth about the importance of books themselves: that they are a gateway to better empathizing and learning about one another and each other, even those that we consider the "villains" at any given time. The author also expertly interweaves ideas of history, anti-Semitism, race, and identity, which showcases the level of depth and adeptness this book showcases. To me, it was a masterpiece in navigating difficult topics while also instilling a level of meaning that was not divisive, but instead inclusive.

Overall, you'll like this book if you like satire, current events, character driven novels, and smaller stories pieced together to create a more unified picture. To me, this book was one that made me think, and one that I will continue to think about for a long time.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

United States Publication: June 18, 2024

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this advanced reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.

Lula Dean is on a crusade and has divided the town over it. The town is a small one deep in the southern state of Georgia, where "the liberals" stay quiet while "the conservatives" are the ruling voice of the town. But Lula Dean has an arch-enemy, Beverly Underwood and her crusade is much more about trying to obliterate Beverly than the concerns she has brought up to the town. What are Lulu's concerns? Books. She's jumped on the ban books book wagon and established a committee to overhaul the town, starting with books. In her efforts to clean up the town from dangerous books, she erects a little library in front of her house stocked with books she says are appropriate. But someone decides to play a prank on Lulu by switching out her hardbacks with more "liberal" titles that feature the approved dustjackets, but the content is decidedly on the banned books list. When the traffic picks up at Lulu Dean's little library she's pleased as punch and convinced her crusade is working. If only she knew. As the residents of Troy get challenged and emboldened by the little library of banned books, the divisions in their little town grow and grow until even some of the most conservative people can't approve of where Lulu wants to lead them.

I loved this book. Miller uses a list of books, some real and some made-up, for the purposes of this story to bring the residents of Troy, Georgia, to the place she imagined for them. The idea of switching out someone's little library books that don't encourage critical thinking or a regard for humanity for books that might accomplish that better is a fun premise to use. To place it in a small southern town is illuminating. But, as Miller says in an author's note, "... I want to make it perfectly clear that the issues addressed in this novel - book banning, white nationalism, anti-Semitism, etc. - are by no means unique to the South. These are American problems. Pretending they only occur in the South has allowed them to flourish unchecked elsewhere in the United States." Kirsten Miller is not wrong. No issues are unique to just a particular region of our nation; we are all affected by these issues whether we live in Washington or Florida, North Dakota or Texas, California or Maine, or any point in between. This story had a hopeful outcome, but the cynic in me thinks it might be too late for such real-life hopeful outcomes; however, the woman struggling to hold on to optimism wants to know outcomes like this one can be possible. Regardless of its plausibility, this book was so much fun to read and such a delight, with numerous nuggets of wisdom to take away from it.

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books was funny and heartwarming while tackling some serious subjects. It’s a book for book lovers that addresses issues such as book banning, white nationalism, anti-Semitism, and prejudices.

I absolutely loved the structure of this book. There are 35 chapters that put us in the heads of 28 different POV characters. Don’t let that intimidate you, because it’s easy to follow along with who’s who. Once a character is introduced, you’re sure to get a POV chapter or background on that character in a following chapter.

The plot centers around a small southern town where some books have been recently banned. Someone decides to switch the covers of these banned books with some other books in a lending library outside of the house of Lula Dean, who spearheaded the banning. What follows is the reader seeing how these banned books have impacted the residents of this small town.

This book is a satire, so know going in that it’s full of caricatures and you’ll need to suspend your disbelief. Everything is a bit over the top, but if that doesn’t bother you I’d highly recommend this book. I laughed, smiled, cheered, and even shed a tear or two while reading.

Don’t miss Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books. You know I believe in freedom of speech and am against censorship. This is the story that explains why book bans don’t and won’t work in a free country as well as exposing how and why people are so intolerant and how we might actually save each other from all of our divisiveness. I just started reading it, and I wish I had enough money to buy a copy for every person I know because it is that important. I love this town, the vignettes of each character and I have laughed out loud in public.
#newbooks #arcs #luladeanslittlelibraryofbannedbooks #currentlyreading

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books
by Kirsten Miller
releases June 18, 2024
304 pages

Thank you to the author, @williammorrowbooks and @netgalley.

Guess you all know what you’re getting as your next gift from your favorite librarian. Will also be added to our little school library.

A must read no matter what.

It's rare when I know that I'm reading a 5-star book before I even finished 1/4 of it, but that's just what happened with this extraordinary story. I want to read it for the first time again. It's bitingly funny and extremely timely. This will be in my top 10 for the year and will be the book I bug people to read for the next several months. Pre-order this one now and just go ahead and clear your calendar because you will not get anything done once you start this book.

An excellent satire on many current events, focusing on book bans that are being implemented but also touching on prevalent topics such as racism, bullying, homophobia, misogyny, and white supremacy. Some of the characters are truly delightful, and many of the incidents/passages are laugh-out-loud funny. Although very tongue-in cheek, this novel also offers powerful insight into America’s current political and social climate and makes the reader think deeply about some rather unsettling topics. I really enjoyed this read, despite it’s being perhaps just a bit preachy at times.

The book started out really well for me. It was interesting and I was aghast at the racism that was going on in Troy, Georgia. I didn't know what the contents of the banned books were (felt a little ignorant) but the author did a good job of breaking it down. The banned books were taken from the public library and placed in storage until the town could make a decision about them. The book banners worried that the books would make kids do bad/wrong things. Things they shouldn't know about: rape, drinking, penises, menopause, gays, etc. The books were taken from storage, one at a time, covers from non-banned books were put on them and the books were placed in Lula Dean's little library. Town residents were going to the little library and reading these shocking books. Well there were quite a few books and readers. About half-way through the book, I was so confused --too many readers and too many books with too many stories linked back to specific readers and books. I almost gave up on the book but I kept reading. Not sure why. This book ended up being too political for me. Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the complimentary digital ARC. I am sorry that I did not enjoy this book but this review holds true to my opinion.