The Librarianist is a quiet book. It is very character-driven, which is usually my favorite kind of book. This novel was divided into four parts. In the first part the reader meets Bob Comet, retired librarian and introvert, who does a good deed while out on his daily walk one day, The act leads him to a senior home where he begins he begins to volunteer and we are introduced to a cast of quirky characters. Although the first part is somewhat slow, it dramatically picked up for me in part two, when the story flashes back to his young adulthood. In the 2nd part the reader learns about his marriage and friendships. I was finally drawn in and decided to press on with the story, but then came the 3rd part. Part three felt very disconnected from the novel. In this section of the novel the reader again is taken back to an earlier time. This time we get to visit Bob in his childhood and learn about the time he ran away from home. More quirky characters are involved. Part four brings the reader full circle and the ending was simply okay, but not extraordinary. I think the book had a very good premise.I really wanted to love it, but it took me three weeks to push through less than 400 pages, so this book did not work for me overall.

Thanks to Netgalley and Ecco Press for this ARC.

This was a story for the ages. I think it will be a book club of the month pick for many! highly recommend for a good story.

I could not get into this book. The main character was dull and not relatable. It sounded so interesting and seemed to have all the elements of a book I would like, but ultimately was a DNF.

Eerie, uncanny, slow paced and strange. I like the premise but this was very hard to concentrate on. This is a slow burn and I really wanted to love but just couldn’t.

This is Bob Comet. He's 71, recently retired from a long career as a librarian and living quietly in his childhood home in Portland, Oregon. He's always been a loner, preferring books to a social life. As a young man he was married to Connie who quickly ran off with his best friend. One day in 7-11 his life changes when he encounters a woman staring into the refrigerator case. He escorts her back to the senior care home and his good deed opens a whole new life to him.
The story shifts between past periods of Bob's life and we learn that his life hasn't always been dull.
The book is a slow starter but rewards are great for those who stick with it. Bob is a wonderfully drawn character at each period of his life. The unfolding of his story holds surprises and opens him to friendship and fun in his defining years.

I love Patrick deWitt and this book reminded why. It is a little slow in the beginning but persevere and you are in for a fabulous, multi layered story

I did not love this wholeheartedly as I did The Sisters Brothers... but the dry wit and acerbic commentary on reality from that book (still one of my favorites!) is back in full force in this novel. Set in much more approachable locales, but with similarly starkly drawn and fascinating characters, I couldn't help but fall a bit in love with Bob for all his standoffish ways and inability to see the realities around him until it was too late. DeWitt is such a singular writer, and even if the story did not work for me at the start, by the end I was all in and couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

I Liked It. I liked the main character and thought the parts about his adult past and present were a great story. I sort of sped through the part around the main character’s child hood, I’m sure it was important it just didn’t resonate for me.

I did enjoy this book. I found the sweet moments to be sweet and the moments that needed to feel an emotion to pull those from me. I am going to recommend it to others, but the only reason why I don't think I'm going to rate it higher is that I didn't full like the writing style. But that is more subjective than objective.

The Librarianist is a charming and hilarious adventure that made me laugh out loud and root for the protagonist. The writing style is very witty and original.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an e-book ARC!

I really loved deWitt's book "French Exit", and the main character of this book is a retired librarian. So as a librarian myself I had high expectations for this book. This book is slower-paced and "quieter" than French Exit. It is character driven rather than plot-driven. This book has two of my favorite things to find in a book: some dark humor and eccentric characters.

This is my first encounter with any of deWitt’s works and I now have plans to get a copy of French Exit (when my book-buying ban is over).

The Librarianist follows the life of a quiet man, Bob Comet, who has worked all his life as a librarian, preferring his books over actual people. A chance encounter with a runaway elderly woman from a senior center opens up his otherwise quiet world to a trove of colorful characters.

The book is non-linear, which I tend to enjoy, as someone who is a big fan of flashbacks (and recalling the past in general). While I enjoyed thé flashbacks, I think the story in the current setting could’ve been fleshed out a little more. I fell in love with the characters in the senior center and was a tad bit sad that I didn’t get to explore their lives further. That being said, the flashbacks to Bob’s earlier life were certainly very entertaining. It seems as if Bob, despite his quiet demeanor, has a tendency to attract the most colorful people. I believe deWitt paints a realistic picture of a simple, quiet life; one that feels rewarding after a fairly colorful and complicated past.

I think people who truly live for reading will enjoy the book-related anecdotes in this novel. It was honestly very comforting to read about reading in a view very similar to mine. I do wish this was longer though! I’m not all familiar with how deWitt likes to end his books, but I just enjoyed his writing style so much that I was left wanting for more. The ending in particular felt a little bit rushed, and I wish it could’ve been built out more. All in all, however, I felt this was such a good read. Reminded me a lot of The Great Unexpected and All The Lonely People—if you are like me and love to read about the lives of the elderly, you’re going to enjoy this!

This was a hopeful story about life, and how it's never too late to find a community. It's a nonlinear story, so we jump around in time a bit. It's full of dry humor, witty bantering, and the messiness of human relationships. It was also an interesting look at getting older, and how people might cope with aging as they reflect on their lives. I enjoyed it.

I loved each section except for part 3, when we went back to his childhood. That section struck me as a bit meandering, and I felt I could've done without it. Though it does have some funny moments.

Thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for the ARC! All opinions are my own.

This is the first Patrick deWitt novel I have read. I enjoy his writing style. I think he is witty and funny and I appreciated that aspect of the book. I would definitely give one of his other books a chance, but for whatever the reason, I did not connect with Bob. It's hard for me to get super invested in a book if the main character doesn't appeal to me. Overall, I would give this book three stars. It is well written and I think others would enjoy this book, it's just not one of my personal favorites. I look forward to trying one of his other novels! Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the ARC.

I liked the premise of reading a story about a retired librarian when I began reading Patrick deWitt s new novel. As the novel progressed, I tried to find some connection to Bob Comet (a human who is the antithesis of his name) but found it difficult to stay engaged. I didn't find Bob's life experiences as compelling as other readers might. I picked up mostly on the sad aspects of the story. It was an interesting read but a bit too character driven for me.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

The Librarianist is the story of Bob Comet, a retired and lonely librarian. Bob's mundane life takes a turn when he encounters a catatonic woman at the convenience store, and gets her returned to her retirement home, where he soon begins to volunteer. His lonely life turns into community life.

We learn along the way about Bob's marriage to Connie, and his best "friend" Ethan. We learn about his childhood escapades. And then ultimately, we learn the joy of closure, and then newness of life.

I loved reading this book - the dialog was fun and humorous at times, and always compelling. I did get a little bogged down reading about Bob's childhood, and might have edited that portion down substantially. I liked the ending, but I had to contemplate on it's meaning for a bit.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review The Librarianist.

Patrick deWitt's new book is a meditation on life and love. It is a meditation on closure and the true inability for our lives to turn out the way we'd hoped, but rather for us to accept the moments that are open doors. I appreciated the kindness that the author shows his subject and I loved the small snapshots we got of the important, and somehow unimportant, life of Bob Comet. I enjoyed this less than 'French Exit' but appreciated the moments of surrealism and gravity the author brings to his characters.

I enjoyed DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers, but other offerings I’ve tried haven’t hit as well for me. that’s the case here, after about a quarter of the book, I realized that I just didn’t care at all about the main character here and did not finish this one.

If you liked Stoner, then you'll love deWitt's take on a simple man's life.

Beautiful. Haunting. Lonely.

I'm a die-hard deWitt fan and even I'm impressed with how good this book is. Bob Comet is a character many readers will compare to Stoner. His life is bland and uneventful. He loves books and has always lived in the same house. The most exciting events in his life were, in reality, moments that left him on the sidelines, watching others experience and feel what he longed for. He watched the people he loved fall in love. But not with him.

Outside of the heartbreaking story and the subtlety of Bob as a character, I need to address the structure of this book. It's not like Stoner, where we follow the protagonist from childhood through death. No, this story is told in three distinct parts: starting at the end with Bob enjoying retirement, then Bob's early adult life with his wife and best friend, then the last section (also my favorite) is when Bob is eleven-years-old and runs away from home for four days. By taking these leaps back in time, Bob's life becomes sadder and sadder. We know his ending (or, at least, we think we do), but this pealing of the onion is emotionally brutal. It's like knowing your child will die of cancer in a few years, then having to live through all the moments with that burden hanging over your head. The reader wants a better outcome for Bob so badly, but we know he won't get one. The final section, following Bob as a boy running away from home, retells all the emotional absences from the first two sections in a novel way. The reader gets to relive Bob's pain one more time. This last section also made me feel like a detective, mapping scenes and characters to those later in Bob's life.

Bob is reminiscent of every Dickens' main character: they're the bland vehicle that allows the reader to meet more interesting characters along the way. Every character is more interesting than Bob. But that doesn't make him a bad protagonist. If anything, deWitt spits in the eye of common storytelling advice and shows us a simple man living a simple life where his tragedy is centered on wanting to be there with everyone else, living a full life, but is constantly fighting fate. Bob may be plain, simple, and boring, but his aching pain of loss is transcendent.

I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Story: 5 stars
Character Development: 5 stars
Writing: 5 stars

At the beginning of this book, I was encouraged by the very likable main character and the fact that he had been a librarian naturally increased my interest. The incident where he helps a lost resident back to the day center where she belongs is charming, as is his meeting of staff. Some of the residents were a hoot, also. But over time, I felt a bit less interested and a bit dispirited by the heavy background story and the protagonist's lack of energy. But a lot of people enjoy Patrick deWitt's books and I expect this one might be a hit with them.