This book had a strong start and end, but the middle mostly lost my attention.

Bob Comet is a librarian with an immense love for literature, but since retiring, he has had a bit of a void in his life. One day he comes upon a confused, elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center where she lives. To fill his free time, he begins volunteering there and quickly gets to know the other residents. But a complication arises, triggering a flood of emotions that sends him down memory lane.

It was at this point I started to lose some interest in the story. Bob was a pretty simple man and his life, while a bit dramatic at times, wasn’t exactly riveting enough to go into detail about. The chapters with his wife and best friend were pretty good, but when it segued to his childhood, it felt out of place and unrealistic. It didn’t seem to flow with the same cadence as the rest of the story. Then when the story returns to the present, I loved the story again and was shocked by what was revealed at that point.

Overall, I liked the idea of the story, but wasn’t drawn in enough by the majority of it.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco Press for providing a copy of this book to review.*

While I was sucked in for the first quarter of the book, things started to slow down and unravel for me halfway through. That being said, deWitt knows how to write a great character. A great rec for folks who loved A Man Called Ove.

Thank you, Harper Collins and NetGalley, for the advanced copy!

A brilliant character study of the melancholy, 71-year-old Bob Comet. The storyline bounces back and forth between present day and past, formative scenes that change the trajectory of his life. Littered with a myriad of quirky characters throughout his life, deWitt slowly develops the story but keeps you turning pages and keeps you guessing. Follows the adage that once you know a person's story, you can understand a lot more about why they are the way they are.

This was such a good and enjoyable read. I love Bob Comet and how he is trying to find life after retirement. He decides to help at a Senior Facility and sometimes they are not the easiest to deal with. He quickly forms many friendships but discovers some undercover secrets along the way. Eventually he winds up living in the facility. A good story that will stay on your mind for a while.

Not my usual kind of read, but I thought I would give it a try because I can never resist books about books - and a novel titled The Librarianist sounded right up my street.

The story started off very interesting, and I found myself intrigued and drawn to the main character, an elderly former librarian who decided on a whim to volunteer at a senior citizen's center after helping one of their residents find her way home after she wandered away. From there, however, the story meanders and flashes back to the past, detailing his past. These sections were interesting enough at first, but I found some of the sections to be too drawn out, especially when the main character runs away from home as a child and finds his way to a hotel. I would have much more preferred the story focus on his 20s when he met his best friend and wife, who later left him for each other.

The direction of the novel never recovered after that, nor did my interest. Ultimately, The Librarianist was an okay read, but it did not blow me away.

Somewhat slowly evolving story in which a retired librarian volunteers at an old-age home and his life story is gradually revealed. Interesting characterizations and interactions.

An uplifting, enjoyable, and charming read, with just the right amount of humor. The cast of characters is well-conceived.

I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley for an honest review.

I liked 2/3 acts in this book and I really wanted to love the third, but after giving me the epic of Connie, Bob, and Ethan I did not want anything else. Which is unfortunate. I think I might ha e liked this book more if it was chronological but I found that I just didn't care about new characters introduced when Bob was a child. I wanted to, it was interesting! But I was just a little bored ans I wanted to know the end.

An easy stroll of a book. I imagine it would. Be a nice audiobook to amble too.

In this latest book by Patrick deWitt, we get less of his acerbic wit but all the characters he is so skilled at writing. I loved Brother Sisters and French Exit, but not all of his books worked for me. When they don't make the mark, the pacing is usually uneven, and that was the case here, as well.

This seems like a softer tale of Bob Comet, an older man who ends up helping out at an old age home when he sees a woman in a near catatonic state in the local convenience store and ends up helping her back to the center. As a retired librarian, he assumes he will bring his love of literature to them, but they aren't interested. Instead, they like his company.

As they find out about Bob, the reader is taken on a trip through his memories, meeting his only love, who would be his wife and his one and only friend. The writing is a bit more sentimental and sweet here, though still filled with sly humor and wild setups. Some of the detours into these reminiscences went far too long for my taste, and the big reveal was nonsensical. I am happy to suspend disbelief for a tale well told, but it stretched my ability to go along with the story.

A novel about a retired librarianist named Bob Comet. The story starts when he inadvertently gets a gig volunteering at a local seniors' home. But we also learn about his past and what led him to become the man is. It feels a bit like Dewitt wanted the challenge of writing a character study of a good, solid, unexciting man , one who stays good in spite of not always being treated well by others. While I really enjoyed some aspects of Bob's history, other parts did not work as well for me. Still, Dewitt's mastery is evident. And it's easy to go where he takes you. His fiction reminds me of Wes Anderson's movies: there's a slight slant to everything he's depicting; it feels close to real but just it's just a bit too quirky and stylized. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

What does it feel like to be confronted with your past?

Bob Comet lives a comfortable life in the Pacific Northwest, enjoying his retirement from the library by surrounding himself with books in the cozy home he inherited from his mother. One day while out on a walk he comes across a disoriented woman about his age, & based on the ID she’s got on a lanyard he brings her back to the senior center that she wandered off from. Bob starts to connect with the other people at the center & forms bonds with a few of the more eccentric characters in residence. But a shocking discovery about the identity of one of the residents sends us on a walk down memory lane: to the time he ran away as a boy, to the beginning of his career, & to his first & only love…

The author does a brilliant job of infusing comedy with a side of bittersweet into the everyday life of Bob, a man (& once a boy) with a knack for finding interesting & uncommon people. The order in which Bob’s story is revealed is perfect. I loved reading about how much Bob enjoyed his career as a librarian, & how he made the most of the simple things in life. I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt, but also probably fitting.

Thank you to NetGalley & Ecco Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Librarianist is an enjoyable quiet book. Bob Comet is an introverted retired librarian who is content in his solitude. We learn about the life he has lived, largely uneventfully, and how he comes to volunteer at a local nursing home and the eccentric characters he meets there.

2.5 stars, rounding down to 2. Nothing seriously wrong with the book. It had been alternating between the present day, when the main character is 71, and his younger days, which was alright with me. However, at one point one of the flashbacks just kept going on and on and on and on.

I could tell you that the events of that overlong flashback are pivotal to the MC's story, but I also have to say that I believe that the book could have been structured differently. (I was about to say "better," but that's just my opinion, and maybe not even correct.) The result was that THIS "librarianist" became extremely impatient with the book, which had only been just ok-to-decent, with some funny bits. Ultimately, I jumped to the end so I can get to my next read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to the good folks at NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book.

Not for me. I didn't connect with any of the characters and got bored waiting for something to happen (spoiler alert: nothing happens).

I love books about books and just by the title and cover alone, it’s getting added to my tbr. Patrick DeWitt is also the author of French Exit.

A lovely, quiet little book centered around introverted, retired librarian Bob Comet. I enjoyed the flashback to his early career and marriage the most, and the section that went further back to his childhood was a little too long for me, but overall it was an enjoyable read about what makes up a life.

The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt is one of the more low key books I have read. It’s the life of Bob Comet, largely through Bob’s thoughts and words and covers the major events of his life. And that is both the strength and weakness of this book, for Bob is so intensely self-effacing, and shy ( or is that a behavioral quirk—I just can’t decide).

The prose is often very clever and well done but…and there is this but always arising. It’s the story of a sad man who appears to have loved his career at the local library, been very unlucky in love, and had one adventure. There is a flashback late in the book to a childhood episode where he ran away from home. I particularly liked this segment. Perhaps it revealed a potential other “Bob” that might have been. Perhaps it offsets later regrets.

I come away from this novel wishing for more but not sorry I read it. I will check deWitt’s writing again. My rating likely 3.5 rounded down to 3.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book.

Bob Comet is a retired librarian who is struggling a bit to figure out what to do in his retirement. He finds a woman who is lost and returns her to a senior home where he is invited to volunteer. Assuming everyone is as into books as he is, he decides to read to them and is dismayed to find they are not interested. Over time he befriends several of the quirky characters.

This book was a decent read but ultimately I felt like it could've been more. The premise is so interesting but the narrative almost loses itself in all of the characters. That being said, I did enjoy Bob. I also really appreciated the writing style. It was clever and fun and kept me engaged even through some of the slower parts of the book. All in all, not my favorite due to structure and some dragged out parts, but I did enjoy it for what it was.

After retiring from a job he loved, librarian Bob Comet is content spending his days reading in his small cottage. It’s a solitary life and Bob knows he could and should be doing more. When he encounters an elderly woman who is seems lost and somewhat confused, Bob escorts her back to a senior center where she lives. Here is where Bob decides to volunteer and as he meets the seniors at the center, the story of his life is revealed through flashbacks and narratives.

The Librarianist is not the book I expected it to be. I enjoyed the first part of the book as the residents of the senior center are introduced and Bob navigates his way through his volunteer commitment. There are also insights into Bob’s life-long love of books. However, this is a small part of this character-driven story and most of it centers around Bob’s earlier life – running away from home at the age of eleven, the influence of an older librarian who inspired Bob to become a librarian himself, and the close relationship he had with his best friend and a woman named Connie, whom he later married.

Much of this part of the story was quite slow for me. The characters are well-developed and the writing is quite good. But, I don’t think I enjoyed this book very much because I had expected something quite different. I would have to say I liked the beginning and the end of this book, but the middle wasn’t my favorite. NetGalley provided an advance copy.