Fifty-four-year-old Sophie Bernstein runs an independent bookstore in the Washington DC area. Snapshot of her current situation-Jamal, her store manager is off to law school, her events coordinator /aspiring writer Clemi just booked a controversial poet who she suspects is her biological father to speak at the store, recently fired employee Florence who fancied herself a soothsayer uttered a dire prophecy in her ear, an interested party is contacting her to buy the bookshop, her store vacuum cleaner gave out (once again) and a customer’s dog scared another customer’s baby which leads to a potential lawsuit. Sophie is at her wit's end in juggling it all.

Recently widowed, she is still grieving her loss and her college graduate son, Michael, shows no interest in the bookstore and aspires to be a yoga teacher. She has designed a small nook hidden behind the walls of the store where she would like to spend some time alone but hardly gets the chance, given the chaos that descends on her store every day.. As the story progresses, we get to see the daily workings inside Sophie's store, customer interactions, mishaps, scheduling issues, inventory issues with unread galleys piling up, authors and publishers and aspiring authors with whom Sophie interacts and as the day of the scheduled events approaches she also has to deal with the different protest groups who camp outside her store, protesting the poet who might have driven his wife to suicide and another author whose work has animal activists enraged- both of whom are scheduled to speak at the store. In a nutshell, Sophie has a lot on her plate and it is interesting to see how she manages it all.

While Bookish People by Susan Coll has potential and an interesting premise, the execution falls short.

I was instantly drawn into this book. I love a good book in a bookstore, they are generally a lot of fun. I was very disappointed overall. Books about book stores are usually really fun to read with lots of interesting characters and storylines. This book had lots of characters, but not one I really was invested in. The vacuum cleaner dilemma became so tiresome, honestly. This book seemed a little scatter brained and all over the place, with too many subplots. I did however like the turtle.

I just couldn’t get into this book. I didn’t like any of the characters and at times it was too hard to follow the story line.

Independent bookstore owner Sophie Bernstein is feeling out of sorts. Nothing seems to be going well (her husband's recent death, her son's lack of clear life plans, and her manager leaving for law school) and she's decided to go into hiding by converting a small, hidden room in her bookstore. Sophie's newest problem involves a reading with a controversial poet. With the help of her events coordinator, Clemi, Sophie tries to cancel, but Clemi convinces her to allow the reading to continue. Through a series of stranger and stranger events, Sophie, with the help of Clemi and the rest of her staff, she comes to realize that her life is pretty good, even when it seems to be crashing down around her. While I usually love novels set in bookstores, this novel left me wanting. The story felt disjointed.

Thank you Netgalley for granting me access to this book. It's a really witty, fun read that I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend. The characters are very nuanced and interesting, this is something I appreciated a lot.

I love the cover of this. It’s super cute and it draws you in. And the description is cute as well.
But nothing in this book called to me. I didn’t find to be the style of writing intriguing at all. I couldn’t hold my attention to really get into it. The most accurate way to describe the writing is probably that it comes off like the author was an amateur. I’m all for a good debut novel (not sure if this was hers) but the style of writing was just really a miss for me. And the plot of the book felt like a lot was going on, but also like nothing was going on.

I appreciate the advanced copy from NetGalley, and I was excited to read it but I wish it would have lived up to high standards for me

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. This book was a interesting read. This book is fast paced but well written. I enjoyed Sophie and Clemi's characters. I would recommend reading this book to anyone and everyone. This book is in stores for $17.99 (USD).

4.5 stars
This book was inventive! It centers on the quirky staff at a bookstore and the aging owner who seems to be having a midlife crisis after her husband dies. The book signings and events introduce chaos to the mix of the already drama-filled store and a vacuum cleaner takes center stage in parts of the plot. It is inventive and fun, with a bit of deep meaning strewn throughout. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you to Harper Muse and NetGalley.

Like other early reviewers, sadly this one fell flat for me. The writing was unpolished and didn’t hit the banter-y quirky note that I think it was going for. It just felt…off. None of the characters were super intriguing, and some of Sophie’s interests (or shall we say obsessions?) and actions were downright strange, but again not in a fun quirky way. Just weird. I love books about books, and books about people who love books, and books about bookstores, but this just missed the mark.

2/5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was excited to read this book and was very disappointed overall. Books about book stores are usually really fun to read with lots of interesting characters and storylines. This book had lots of characters, but not one I really was invested in......well, other than the turtle. The vacuum cleaner dilemma became so tiresome, honestly. I wish I had better things to write, but I just didn't like the book at all. The book was all over the place, skipping around to different characters and storylines to the point that it got ridiculous.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Harper Muse for an advanced copy of Bookish People in exchange for a fair review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper’s Muse for the ARC of Bookish People!

I love the trend of books about people who love to read books. It makes them feel really relatable. The cover is so cute and the premise was perfect, it had all the elements to make me love it and I just found it to be very average on most aspects. It seemed like there wasn’t a coherent writing style and the multiple sub-plots made the storyline feel confusing and cluttered.

I almost thought about DNFing the book unfortunately because it felt more like a slog to read than an enjoyment. Very confusing with characters that weren’t likable enough.

If you like reading about vacuums, you’ll get to read about them a lot more than I ever thought I would.

I enjoyed Bookish People immensely. I found the writing refreshing, unique, and funny. I quite liked how we got to see the perspective of 3 different characters, how they are connected, and how their lives impact each other. I enjoyed that each chapter was like a short story, that all connected in the end, rather than a novel that followed one, linear storyline.

The multiple interconnected subplots were fun, unique, and comical. Though the characters and storylines felt outlandish at times, there was an air of realness in the stories.

Though I can understand not everyone would be interested in this light, comical novel. However, I found Bookish People funny, unique, and real, and would recommend to anyone looking for a light summer read, or a refreshing view on reality.

As a bookish person, it’s a no brainer that I wanted to read this book! But what I wasn’t expecting was how funny this book was. I genuinely laughed.

Bookish People is a story about those who work at a bookstore, and all of the quirks that they have. We follow Sophie and Clemi as they navigate through life after some interesting events. Sophie lost her husband and is afraid that the world is ending. She is slowly turning the back room in her bookstore to a bunker that she can hide in since her husband had passed and the events unfolding in the world. Clemi has taken over the events in the bookstore while managing sharing a room with her best friend who was fired from the same bookstore due to a meltdown where she yelled at a customer over trying to find out the name of a book (honestly, I can relate. A book about birds and you want the goldfinch?? be more specific, people!!)

A whirlwind of events unfold when Clemi invites a poet, that is said to be the new Ted Hughes, to speak at the store. All while the vacuum is breaking and sucks up Sophie's keys, Clemi and another employee adopt a tortoise named Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and trying to keep the bookstore running. This is a very funny and quirky novel reminding us that we never know what anyone is going through behind the scenes! As someone who worked at a bookstore, I can relate to many of the traits that some of these characters possess. I would recommend this to anyone who likes to read books about bookish people (it was a fitting title!) This isn't a romance novel, but a cute, quirky story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Muse for the digital arc!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

When I first came across this book I fell completely in love with the cover and the titel, unfortunately the same can’t be said about the story though. The book is good, but there isn’t really anything special about it and if I’m being completely honest it is one of those book that I will forget about in a few months.

The one really great thing about the book is the way Susan Coll writes. The writing is amazing! I just wish there was more depth to the story and the characters to get the book from good and to great.

I will however say that the tortoise won a few points. I had a few great laughs about the tortoise Kurt!

Who doesn't love book references in books?

Book(ish) references are one of the most thing that excites me about romances. But this book was literally a ‘meh’ to me. Bookish People felt so flat. Also didn’t like the authors pen. However i can’t say that this book wasn’t cute.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review 🫶🏻

A look inside a frenzied period of a Washington DC bookstore. Two women's stories one recently bereaved one searching for a poet who might just possibly be her father. Sophie and Clemi struggle to navigate their paths amidst the chaos of bagel snatching dogs,a tortoise and a vacuum cleaner that refuses to cooperate.

In August 2017, bookstore owner Sophie is out of sorts. It's not just her husband's recent sudden death. Or her son's decision to become a yoga instructor. Or the upcoming solar eclipse. It is kind of the white supremacist rally in nearby Charlottesville. And a series of demonstrations at her own bookstore threaten to be eclipsed by the upcoming reading by Raymond Chaucer's whose wife's recent death (which he insists was not suicide) by carbon monoxide poisoning from their oven (which he insists was not an AGA) is causing comparisons to Ted Hughes.

Although she knows Sophie wants her to cancel the reading, events planner Clemi has her own selfish reasons for not doing so--she suspects Raymond Chaucer, not her deceased stepfather, is her biological father.

The bookstore staff deals with these and other crises (bagel-stealing, biting dogs, rogue turtles, electrical problems, and the broken vacuum Sophie refuses to get fixed) with considerable hilarity. For some reason, it took me a while to get into this book, but once it grabbed me, I couldn't put it down. #BookishPeople #NetGalley

I usually love books about book stores and book-loving people but this story line wasn't interesting to me. The characters are unique and quirky and the writing is well executed, but I didn't feel any emotional connection or draw to the characters or plot line. I think the story lacked emotion and an emotional connection is something that I love and seek out in fiction. This book may appeal to readers who want something light and funny but it wasn't for me.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
For starters I was not a fan of the language used right from the start the main characters came off as entitled and overly knowledgeable. As a local library clerk, I thought I would be able to really relate to this, as I adore books about books. However, I could not seem to develop a connection with the two main characters. I found myself nodding off trying to finish it. I was laughing at some of the jokes, but most of them I guess I didn’t find funny or I had a hard time understanding what the point was. The POV was confusing as heck, half the time I didn’t know what character was talking. I’m sure some people will relate differently to “Bookish People” maybe people who enjoy confusing comedy with some book references, sadly it was not a good fit for me.