Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not impact my rating or review.
Wow. This was a painful read. I should have DNFed it, but I kept hoping it would get better, it did not. I think the bigger issue is that the entire book felt fragmented. We know why it was that way later, but it didn’t read for a nice smooth read. And the romance that we should root for, just felt dull and limp. There’s a plot about saving the town library and a magical room with books that allows you to see the people who have borrowed it and then Claire (the town librarian) who gets obsessed with a patron (Julian) and his past friendships. Give me a solid magical realism book and I am usually content as heck. This time I kept wondering when would things get better and they never did.
The Memory of Borrowed Books follows town librarian, Claire Ashford. Claire has found herself unable to sleep and worried that it seems as if the town council is planning on closing down and tearing down the library to bring in more business to the town. Claire’s friend and colleague Grace though tells Claire about a secret door in the library that no one knows much about. But one day Claire finds the door and finds herself opening books and being transported back into the past of some of the library’s patrons. The library seems fixated on tossing Claire back to a point in time and she does not know why. Along with this she finally starts talking to one of the patrons, Julian, and finds herself running into an old friend of his Eddie who talks in riddles (seriously).
The book is mostly Claire not sleeping, trying to avoid her father, but somehow hanging out with Julian (who she has zero chemistry with) and trying to work out the mystery of Julian and Eddie (and no common sense says she would just ask Julian but the book would have been done several hundred pages earlier).
I don’t even know what else to say except this was a bust and not that good.
