Bookish People is a standalone women’s fiction novel by Susan Cool. It’s a story about
charming, with witty dry humor and a dash of quirkiness. A character driven story about “bookish people” whose lives are interconnected with an independent bookshop as an appealing backdrop. It was a quick read that made me laugh but also faced more somber topics such as grief of a spouse.

Bookish People

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review


This book is the story of a bookstore and the different people who work there. It stars Sophie, an older woman who owns the store and is dealing with all sorts of grief and difficulties, and several other interconnected characters.


This book was so slow. It was slightly painful to get through. It also had like... no plot? I could not really tell you what the main point of the book was. There were several small storylines that interwove, and while those stories were fun and sometimes interesting, I needed more to keep me engaged. (There was a lot of time spent talking about a tortoise and also a vacuum cleaner)

The writing style was interesting and was engaging, almost reminiscent of Fredrik Backman, but the lack of plot simply made the book difficult to read and power through. The characters were interesting, but there were too many to track. Also, I am still confused about the entire antisemitism plot and how it was meant to tie into the story as a whole

PG+

Setting : Book store
POV : 1) Book store owner,Sophie
2) Book store employee, Clemi
Sophie is a 54 year old, recently widowed book store owner. She seems to be obsessed with breaking news stories and her perceived decline of civilization as we know it. Her quasi solution is to transform a hidden nook in the book store into her own personal fall out shelter. She is so preoccupied with this project that she is not fully available to anyone around her.
Clemi is a twenty- something book store event coordinator. She loves her job but feels overwhelmed at work and in her personal life.

I always looked forward to ready Clemi's view but initially struggled to connect with Sophie: which is odd considering I am nearly the same age as this character. Sophie just comes across as a scared,scattered woman. This seems especially odd since she is a business owner.

To the author's credit there is a wonderful cast of supporting characters that propel the story quite nicely. ( My favorite are probably the vacuum cleaner and the tortoise.) There are ocassionsal "End of day reports" that are little nuggets of happiness,too.
There are crazy ,chaotic situations that are hilarious .
Overall it a charming book, that truly hits it's stride about 75% of the way in.
3 1/2 rating

verbal-humor, situational-humor, contemporary, fiction, small-business, burnout, frustration, bookseller, books, angst, writers, wry-humor, grieving, ageing*****

The characters are quirky, and the humor had me alternately snurfling and laughing out loud. No way I'd try to summarize because my overwhelming response is laughter of one sort or another. FUN!
I requested and received an e-book copy from Harper Muse via NetGalley. Thank you!

Thank you to netgalley, the publisher and Libro.fm for my ALC, of BOOKISH PEOPLE in exchange for an honest review. This book published August 2!

I LOVE books about books and books that take place in bookstores. They are so fun! Unfortunately, this one fell kind of flat for me, and by the time I got to 73%, I was just not interested in finishing it. I think I wanted more romance involved, and this one just doesn’t have hardly any romance in it, at least not enough for me to keep reading. Just because it was a miss for me, doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it!

I read 25% of this book and then abandoned it. It was both depressing and confusing. I decided not to wait any longer to see if anything was going to happen. I usually like books about libraries, bookstores, and bookish people but I didn't care for this book at all.

This book looked interesting and I think had potential to be better but unfortunately I wasn’t a fan. I didn’t love the story line and the characters weren’t too exciting for me either.

I tend to love books set in the literally world, being a book lover myself I'm somewhat fascinated by the industry. So I was really looking forward to reading this one.
Although it did held a certain appeal, at the end the writing style seemed very amateur and the story line fell a bit flat.

Thank you, NetGalley and Harper Muse, for the opportunity to read Bookish People! But sadly, it was a DNF for me. I did manage to read just over half of the book, but nothing was holding my attention. I did not care for any of the characters, The idea was good, but the execution was not there.

Absolutely fantastic! Could not put this book down once I started reading it. Will definitely recommend to everyone I know that enjoys reading!

When a book has a cover like this and the words “Bookish People”, automatically I will have high expectations from that book. However, this book was such a let-down.

Firstly, I was not immediately hooked with the story. It took me about 30% to get into the story. I was even contemplating DNFing this book but I carried on and once I got interested in the story I carried on, hoping it would get better.

The bookstore owner, Sophie Bernstein, was grieving but it didn’t feel like she was grieving. She was acting in a weird way. I mean, everyone deals with grieve in a different way but I don’t know, her actions felt off to me. Another main character was Clemi who was in her 20s but she felt like she was an old woman.

Another thing about this book was it described more about vacuum cleaners than it did about the characters and their relations. Why was there so much details about vacuum cleaners and ovens? The characters felt very two- dimensional.

Also, there is a pet turtle in the book and he was mentioned many time. So my question is why isn’t there any turtle on the cover but instead, this dog? I mean, I love dogs, but I don’t remember anyone from the book having a pet dog. It was a turtle! There should’ve been a turtle on the cover!

One of the major plot points of this book is related to a famous poet, Raymond Chaucer, who Clemi assumes is her biological father. That aspect felt kind of unresolved and what was even the point of it all?

Another thing, this book is about a BOOKSTORE!! Our most favorite place in this world. It is a magical place. The author should have been able to make the bookstore come alive but it was not properly done at all.

Overall, I did not enjoy my time reading this book as much as I wanted to. Even though this book was not that boring, it was still a bland and lukewarm story. I did not get attached to any character at all. The only character I cared about was that poor turtle who was tossed around. It deserved better caretakers. There were few funny moments here and there but unfortunately they were not enough to save this book.

Even though i am a book person, i couldn’t like this book much.
I wanted to ditch the book, but i thought it will get better for me, and be in my taste. But, it was just not for me. A lot of cliches, unrealistic methods were charming before, but they just annoy me now. Or it can be totally my problem, maybe i have seen every romantic movies possible hence everything feels meh, as i already been there.

Sadly, this didn't work for me. The writing is a little too all over the place for me and the plot, while a great idea on paper, was poorly executed.

I think this needs a hefty review and re-edit before it goes on the shelves.

I was hoping the reviews were wrong, but I couldn’t get through this book and sadly this is a DNF for me.

The writing, the subplots…it was just too all over for me.

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

Thanks to NetGalley, I received this ARC. Quirky, fun, and an easy read! A light weekend read that will have you laughing!

I simply could not get into this book, perhaps someone else may enjoy this one more than I did. Thank you netgalley & the publisher for the arc

I had really high hopes for this book. I appreciate what the author was trying to do but I think it fell a little flat. I'm not sure if there was too much going on that it was hard to focus or care about all of the characters or that the reader didn't get enough time with certain characters and too much time with others. It felt like there were loose ends that still needed tying up.

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.