This book took a little while to hook me, around 20% into it I still wasn't feeling it. I felt like Loveday (adorable name!) reminded me too much of Eleanor Oliphant. Socially Awkward twenty-something, hiding a secret from her childhood, and unexpectedly meeting a man who would become very important to her...I've read this book before. 

But as the details unfolded, Loveday became less like Eleanor and more like her own person in my mind. Loveday is a young woman with a complicated childhood who is content in her world of books. That is until a new man enters her life and she realizes that the secrets she has been wearing like armor, are suffocating her instead of protecting her. I ached for Loveday and desperately wanted to see her let go of the past and move into her future. 

I loved that there was a dash of mystery thrown in and it definitely helped to keep my attention. The second half of the book was read in one sitting and my husband laughed at me as I gasped in alarm and sighed with contentment in the final chapters (what can I say, I'm an expressive reader!).

One of my favorite parts of this book is all of the literary references! Many books, old and new, are mentioned and Loveday's tattoos had me looking up the first lines of my favorite books just to see what they were. Loveday is a true bibliophile (a girl after my own heart) and if you've ever been carried through difficult times with the help of a book, this will be right up your alley. 

Overall, I give this a solid 3 out of 5 stars. I definitely liked it and found it enjoyable but wouldn't say that I loved it. Don't be deceived by the cute cover, there are some dark topics covered (abuse, foster system, mental illness) but overall it was just the kind of reader reset I needed.

Writing:  5 Plot: 4 Characters: 5+

Welcome to the spiky interior world of Loveday Cardew. By turns comic, powerful, uplifting, and literary, this book about books and the people who love them made me one happy clam. 

Loveday has worked in the Lost For Words bookshop in York (England) for 15 years.  Her network of tattoos is a compendium of significant first lines from favorite novels — I was hooked right there. By the way, the first line of this book? —  “A book is a match in the smoking second between strike and flame.”  Not bad!

She works for Archie — the rich, eccentric, and larger than life (in more ways than one) bookstore owner who feels that “good relationships are more important than being able to see your feet.”  Through the accidental recovery of a Liverpool Poet book, she meets  Nathan — a cravat wearing poet who daylights as a magician. Nathan teaches her that you can “write a different story for yourself” — both in terms of the future and the impact you allow from the past. 

The book is simultaneously a tender love story, a positive recovery tale, and a foray into the literary world. There is no catalog of horrors, but we do follow the trajectory of a woman who is establishing her own life in the wake of a tragic childhood event. I appreciate that this event is not painted in black and white — there is a realistic complexity to understanding how things happened the way they did and what she can do to become a fully realized human being. Here is a hint — performance poetry has an unexpected role to play!

A great comic style. As an example, when admitting that used book stores have to pulp the extras, Loveday says: “Five million copies of The Da Vinci Code were published in 2003.  How many of them does the world still need fifteen years later? A lot less than five million.” (FYI, personally, I might suggest “a lot less than five” — not a huge fan).

Some of my favorite lines:

“She seemed the type who went through her days tutting like a pneumatic disapproval machine.”

“Nathan came over and the nearer he got the more I wanted to run, and cry, and touch him, and blurt, and hide, and kiss him and generally behave as though Barbara Cartland had just sneezed me out.”  Love the comic ending on a sentence that was hurling into heavy-duty romance territory!

 “It felt as though his words, rather than heading out into the air, were falling off the edge of his lower lip, drooping into my hair, and sliding down the side of my head and into my ear.”

Top recommendation!

The lost for words bookshop is a heartwarming story of beautifully messed up life.

Unfortunately I did not finish this book. I think the concept is extremely promising and interesting and I appreciated the writing style and characters despite not enjoying them myself, but I personally could not get into it.

I really enjoyed this story about Loveday. We follow her mostly in the present as she struggles to trust. Then we go back and learn why. I loved this character and her strength to move forward in the best way she could.

Stephanie Butland is one of the best writers I was introduced to this year on NetGalley. Her new book "The Lost for Word Bookshop" is a work of art. I was shown that a book does not need to be linear to produce deep feelings. Loveday Cardew's world changed every three weeks when her dad returned from the offshore oil rig for his week at home. She loved both parts of her life. When she was ten she no longer loved her life. Her father was dead, her mother was gone and Loveday entered the foster care system. This is not a book about foster care. This is a book of discovery and choices and how a life can expand or remain unchanged.

Loveday's journey gave me so many things to think about. I would be reading and out would come a phrase I needed to write down so I could think about it later. Loveday described a brother and sister as puppies playing in the sun. What a wonderful way to say they had easy lives. In a letter: Is not meaning to hurt the same as not hurting? The book is full of word pictures that made it a pleasure to read. I strongly recommend this book that is scheduled to publish the first week of June.

I love this book.  It made me laugh and cry and "feel."  The characters were beautifully and realistically drawn and I drawn in from page one.  A completely satisfying read, and a book I'll be recommending to others.

Delightful book. The first half of the book reminded me a little of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. This would be a great beach read. I’d like to read more by this author.

4.5 stars. I loved this realistic yet heartwarming story of a damaged young woman's journey back to  love and community.

A bookish work with (to my) surprise a domestic thriller.  Moments of light and dark and a lead character that has a good balance of being both snarky and kind hearted.  I personally didn’t care for the poetry but this is only a small portion of the book.

A 5 star book is a rare and wondrous thing – something to be savored and appreciated. Who can say what exactly defines a 5 star book? For me, it is a story that is completely absorbing and transports me to a different time and place, until I at last look up from the final page and slowly reenter the physical world.

I recommend that you sit down with this book when you have time to devote to it. Believe me, you won’t easily walk away.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. My thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.

This book had me at the title and only got better from then on. As a lover of reading, libraries (and bookshops) as well as being a sucker for scenes set in England, I was fully prepared to love this novel.  But it gave me so much more to enjoy in the person of Loveday, the nose-ringed and raspberry-haired young woman escaping from a traumatic time in her childhood that left her reclusive and withdrawn.  The other characters, good guys and bad, are also boldly drawn.  Archie, the former spy now used book shop owner is someone you want to meet.  He is the antithesis of Loveday, being outgoing and a friend to all but particularly to this young woman.. You may fall in love with Nathan and hiss at Rob, but your heart goes out to this solitary  reclusive bookworm herself.

There's enough suspense and action to keep you turning pages, and some tearful moving moments too.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas Dunne books for the opportunity to read, enjoy and review this book.

3.5  A quick and pleasant read.  I had trouble relating to the main character, Loveday, as she seemed just as closed off to me, the reader, as she did to the other characters in the book.

Even though I liked this book, there were a few elements that were off to me.  I wished for a more suspenseful build up around the ex boyfriend, Rob.  I found myself puzzling over Loveday’s choices and reasoning behind her choices.  She was a very puzzling character.  I assume she had C-PTSD, but the symptoms were glossed over which disappointed me.  There were a lot of missed chances at character development.  I wanted to know them better. 

My favorite character was Archie, and he brightened every scene he was in.  He brought more life to this book than any of the other character’s in it, though Nathan’s Doc Martins were a close second best.  

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book delivers so much more than promised. The description and reviews I read were what initially drew me to this novel, however, what I read was so much more than any description had offered. More than a pleasant surprise, this tale turned out to be a quietly powerful one like our protagonist, Loveday.

The story unfolds around you mirroring Loveday's own journeys towards forgiveness, bravery, trust and self-discovery. The characters and setting are also superbly done. You feel their warmth, sense their quirks, and it all just quickly welcomes you into Loveday's little corner of the world. Frankly, the story just left me with that warm and fuzzy feeling reminding you that humanity is alright.

And if you are a bibliophile, this book is also for you. As it revolves around a book shop and people who love books and words, there are lots of good classics referenced and just an all-around sense of connection with the characters just on the basis of an almost romantic view on books.

Lost For Words  is thoughtful, surprising, and yet comfortably familiar. The book is one I have already recommended to friends. 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2358071977?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

A book lovers dream book! A story about a used bookshop and it's unusual cast of characters. I love Loveday Cardew. She's a lovely blend of quirky and charm. A protagonist that is deep, intelligent, marches to her own  (tattoos and piercings included!)  and just this side of different that you wonder what she'll say or do next. Add to the story a  wonderful, quirky in his own right, bookshop owner  (Archie) and an intriguing poet/magician (Nathan Avebury. Fabulous "day" job, BTW) and you get a hard to put down story that draws you in, and won't let go. 

This book was a beautiful blend of fun and sadness. It was so much more than a "cozy" or chick lit.

I admit that I had a difficult time putting it down and when I finished it, was sad that it ended. It was that good.

*I would like to thank the author/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review*