This is a lovely book. When we go to bed, I feel like sometimes the business and chaos of the day stay with us, making it hard to relax and truly be restful. I read these stories before bed and they really do put you in a happy and peaceful state of mind. There are stories for every season so you can visit the one you are currently in, or the one you are looking forward to. A nice way to wind down after a busy day.

Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for ARC to review! A new release from just last week, this group of sweet, simple stories can help calm you down in whatever kind of anxious situation you may be in. I didn’t find great success with these for sleep (I think personally the podcast format would work better for me as reading is sometimes too difficult to focus on at night), but in other stressful times it felt helpful to turn to this book, slow my breathing, and try to walk through the little town Nicolai has created.

The small dream town she’s created adds to the calm atmosphere of the stories and the friendly interactions at each place. My personal favourite was the visit to the spice shop, but there are also many bookish stops and stories for all you readers.

The unanticipated bonus that I joked about above is that it also serves as a really great tool in current times, both for the added stress we’re all facing and because these simple stories about going to the farmer’s market or a cafe or the movies with friends allow us to engage in these activities that for many have been put on hold in a very safe and calming way.

The stories follow a year from January to December so we work our way through the seasons and holidays. I much preferred the fall and winter stories — visiting pumpkin patches, Thanksgiving dinner, picking out a Christmas tree — perhaps because they’re activities I’m looking forward to right now. I definitely see the benefit in visiting particular stories at certain times of year if you like seasonal reads but you can also breeze through the whole year in one go like I did.

While there were enjoyable stories and I also liked the addition of yoga flows and recipes that accompanied some of the chapters, there were a few things that irked me and stopped me from getting totally immersed in the stories. I appreciated that the author says she’s removed gender markers for most characters so that you can imagine yourself and your relationships in their place. However, one story is very much about being a mom, which felt an odd thing to focus on when the reader is meant to fit themselves into the shoes of the narrator and this is obviously not going to be a reality for many people.

It’s also clear that the author likes to cook but some things felt overboard in terms of too much description and often using unusual ingredients. These moments stood out as a sore thumb in my reading rather than helping me transport to this dream state. As someone who’s not vegan, it also became immediately obvious that the author is and I was initially confused by the lack of burgers at a BBQ, the chickpea-avocado-sprout sandwiches at a picnic, and a bakery snack of caper artichoke toast (this one really got me because I’ve never been at a bakery offering sweets and treats that offered those toppings she just happened to have in the fridge). The lack of meat was not the biggest issue for me but these more unusual snacks and meals disrupted the pace in a story I’m meant to be immersed in.

As one last small gripe, there’s also a note about how you should remember the titles along with the stories so that in the future you can recall the titles and immediately immerse yourself in the stories once more. But for me, especially as someone who rarely reads chapter titles, I don’t find that helpful as there are so many titles to remember and they’re not all that memorable. I can much more easily recall the stories than their specific title.

Many of my complaints with these stories wouldn’t be ones that would carry over to other books I read, but with the nature of this particular book being one where I’m meant to imagine myself in the narrator’s place, there were too many odd moments for me to fully connect.

Loved this book! So relaxing perfect for those times you suddenly wake up at 3 AM in the morning. The writing is very soothing and I often found myself turning through the pages when I couldn’t sleep at night.