In the end, I didn't connect to this book, the humor, or the characters. The imagination and fantasies that she wove were so off-putting to me. The attitude of the MC was unpalatable, and the storyline wasn't one I cared about. Something that should have worked, or that I hoped would work-didn't. At all.

Thanks to Harper Perennial for the ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. I know many (if not all) book reviewers identify as bookworms, but the main character in Bookworm has a book obsession that takes over her life. Victoria doesn’t own books, but she does read library books voraciously. So much so, that her view of reality begins to blur with her imagined fantasies, stemming from her reading. For example, after seeing an attractive man reading the same book that she is reading at her usual coffee shop, Victoria imagines going into his bedroom to snuggle with him at night. One of the reasons she is reading so much is to escape her unhappy marriage to her wealthy and controlling husband. She researches, in her reading, multiple ways to end her marriage by killing her husband, trying to find a way to avoid being left with nothing due to her prenup. The story gets quite dark at times - not the upbeat romcom vibe the cover seems to give off!
I started this one back in February on the train heading home from a weekend in NYC, but I set it aside for some reason. When I went back to it this weekend, I couldn’t put it down. I listened to part of it because I wanted to check out the narration by @karissavacker which definitely got me back into where I'd left the story. The quirky main character and the dark humor were exactly what I wanted - so different from what I’ve read recently. I can understand where I may have reacted differently to the book if I’d read it at another time, but I’m so glad I read it when I did. I’m impressed with this debut, and I look forward to seeing what else comes from the author.

Based on its cover, title, and description, I was expecting a light-hearted and sweet comedy. What I got instead was an over-the-top protagonist that has both an overactive imagination and a mind for murder. Her thinly veiled disdain for everyone around her propels the story into unexpected places. The writing is cheerful and funny, which just adds to the character’s wickedness. The chapters are short, but exciting. This dark and hilarious book is not at all what I was expecting, but it turned out to be exactly what I wanted. Bookworm is a fantastic way to spend an afternoon.

Wow this is a book that I can 100 percent say with certainty is a complete original. I'm having a hard time even figuring out what genre it falls into. As long as you understand the book is weird, I think you can just go with it and really enjoy the ride. I have to say there hasn't been a novel I finished so fast in a long time. Victoria is one of a kind and Bookworm read like a character study. Her fantasies work as her escape and although I appreciated the scenes of her imagining her husband's demise, they did become somewhat repetitive. I think her long-winded snap judgments of strangers could've been edited out too. However, the rest was great and the ending was very unexpected. I thought the author was going to head in the predictable route and she didn't, so I absolutely loved the conclusion. Overall, a great debut.

Victoria is a young, unhappy woman in Montreal who parades herself around each day between her job as a spa masseuse and the wife of a lawyer working long hours to become partner. In between, Victoria reads. Eric, Victoria's husband, is equally unhappy and despises the germ-filled books Victoria buys from used bookstores or borrows from the library. When Victoria notices a handsome man at a coffee shop who is reading the same novel she is, Victoria begins to imagine Eric's accidental death so she and this handsome stranger can begin a life together. Weird and creepy, but Robin Yeatman has crafted a novel that readers will not put down--wondering how Victoria will carry out her plan. Bookworm is a great beach read.

I love books about books! the ending really surprised me - I did not see it coming. Overall, really easy read and I enjoy reading about delusional women, very relatable

This book was a sort of dark, but fun read. It wasn't my favorite read of the year, and it wasn't what I expected overall, but it was still decent.

No. This book is not for true bookworms. I expected a woman who genuinely loved books. Not a psycho who is trying to distract herself from her psycho husband by reading. None of the characters are likable. I didn't want to finish it, but I invested so much in this ARC. I just wanted it to end. The flying at night?!? Is that a dream? Seriously and I quote "I don't know what's going on.. I'm just enjoying my bread.". Not a fan.

This book is about a women who is married and her husband doesn’t like that she reads and won’t allow her to own books. She is a huge bookworm and meets a guy at a coffee shop who is reading the same book as her. Their unhappy marriage unfolds and this book is a dark comedy of sorts.

This book was so weird. Victoria is unhappy in her marriage. Apparently, she can also visit people in dreams, but they are real situations? Her best friend is a flighty flirt who dates a lot of men. None of these characters were likable.

Spoilers***

I hated how Victoria basically built up this life and perfect version of Luke, and was contemplating ways to kill her husband. And then she gets her best friend, who was sleeping with her husband, to do it!? Yikes.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review:

This was a fun, albeit twisted read. Bookworm has no likable characters, in the most interesting of ways. Eric is awful. His—and her parents—treatment of Victoria certainly push her to unhealthy extremes (and ultimately to something truly terrible). But she isn’t great either. I both felt sad for and angry at her the entire time. Perhaps it’s all a reflection of what unhappiness can awaken in us, the worst and darkest of thoughts and actions.

It’s a great read when you’re mad at your husband 😅.

Bookworm is an incredibly dark, yet realistic portrayal of an unhappy marriage, and the toll it takes on a woman prone to living too much in her own head. I've heard mixed reviews on this book, and can see how it wouldn't appeal to some people. However, there are definitely people out there that this will resonate with, and I found myself appreciating all the nuance and complicated situations of the characters.

Victoria appears from the outside to have it all, a handsome, successful husband, an upper middle class life, a pristine home. And her husband, Eric, and her overbearing parents never hesitate to remind her how lucky she is, and why SHOULDN'T she be happy with all she has? But Victoria feels like a bird in a cage, oppressed by Eric's controlling behavior. Not a reader, like Victoria, he doesn't want her cluttering up their space with physical books, and thinks her detached behavior is a direct result of her reading. Instead, he would much rather her sit in silence next to him as he rewatches movies and television series from thirty years ago. Victoria can't truly breathe until he falls asleep at night, and it is no wonder she imagines a hundred different scenarios of his death each day.

One day while reading her book in a coffee shop, she sees a handsome stranger reading the same book as her, and immediately decides that this is a sign from the universe and that they are meant to be together. After another encounter at the coffee shop, they exchange information, and make arrangements to go on a date, despite Victoria's marital status. Meanwhile, Eric's late work nights may be more than they seem as well, as Victoria notices the sudden strange behavior of her best friend, Holly. Everything comes to a stunning climax where Victoria ends up getting everything she ever wanted, but the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

A solid 3 star read. I think this character is very relatable in the sense that we all slip away into daydreams of how we could be happier. Sometimes our idle thoughts lead us to dark places. I thought this would be a 4 star read for me, but it was still a lot of fun. I suggest giving it a go.

Victoria is a self proclaimed bookworm. She spends as much of her free time reading books and she loves people watching and coming up with stories about their lives. She’s also miserable with her husband Eric and shows a very strong sense of dark humor coming up with ways that he could die - whether at her hands or someone else’s.

While at her favorite cafe, Victoria sees a very attractive man who just so happens to be reading the same book as her. She starts to imagine what their interactions would be like until one day it happens and goes farther than she expected.

This one got a solid 3.5 stars from me - it would have gotten 4 but the ending was very abrupt and felt incomplete.
Overall, I liked the story enough - the dark and twisty humor drew me in but I wish I could have had more of an ending…

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Victoria feels trapped in her marriage, so she uses books and her vivid imagination to escape her life and tries to will a different reality into being. This is a dark comedic book and Victoria’s thoughts are both humorous and disturbing. I wanted a bit more character development and although I understood the fitting ending, I selfishly wanted it to go a different direction. Overall, I enjoyed this book.

Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood meets the sense of hysteria that pervades the works of Ira Levin, with an ode to the power of books to carry us through mundanity of life. And, I am here for it!

This book kept me hooked. A little cozy, a lot crazy, a fabulous ending - this book takes you on a wild and unexpected ride! Add to that the anecdotal references to popular novels, and Robin Yeatman has given us a winner! This book was so different from anything I've read lately, and the hype I had seen surrounding it was completely confirmed. The generic title and cover is really deceiving, though. This novel is a lot darker than either imply.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Perennial, and the author for sharing this arc with me in exchange for my honest feedback.

Victoria is stuck in a loveless marriage arranged by her parents. Her workaholic husband Eric is controlling, insensitive, and cold. She spends all her free time with her nose stuck in a book dreaming of living a different life.

One day she sees a handsome stranger reading the same book that she’s reading at their neighborhood cafe. She becomes obsessed with this man and the life that she could be living if he was her husband instead.

Unfortunately, with the iron-clad prenup she signed with Eric, she realizes the only way out of her marriage is if he dies. Cue the never-ending montage of all the ways she could kill him without going down for his murder.

When fiction becomes reality, Victoria’s world is turned upside down.

——

Two things that did not work for me in this book:
1. She thinks she is a “time witch” who can manipulate her brain while she sleeps to leave her body and fly across town to the handsome cafe stranger and sleep in his bed with him at home. It’s so weird and so unrealistic and made me cringe so badly. There is genuinely no scarier concept than a stranger seeing you out in public and sending a spirit version of themselves to spoon you while you sleep without your knowledge.

2. Throughout the first half of Bookworm, the author references the book that Victoria and the cafe stranger were both reading at least 20 times. It makes sense at first, because that’s the first thing that Victoria felt connected them, but then the author goes on this offensive attack towards said book and how horrible it is. The strange part is that she passive aggressively gives the reader very obvious clues that the book is A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. She mentions the picture of a man’s face in pain on the cover, the exact number of pages, and describes the main character who struggles with self harming in vivid detail. It’s one thing to dislike a book, but to include it in a book you wrote and go on and on about how much you hated it, is a bit too much for me. Hello petty??? I personally loved A Little Life, so it just rubbed me the wrong way. It honestly made me think about how beautifully A Little Life was written and had me comparing the two side by side, which was not the smartest move in this book.

Woah!! Please do not let the title and cover of this book fool you! This looks like a light fun book about a nerdy little lady who loves to read a lot. Let me tell you, this book was batshit crazy, super dark and I loved every minute of it!! Favorite book of the year so far!! Thank you!!

i can't pinpoint why, but this one just didn't work for me. I don't know if it was the writing/humour, or the main character. I struggled to get through it and felt like I was just trying to finish. Could be a me problem, since other people liked it. It sucks, because I wanted to enjoy it - I think I enjoyed the concept more than the actual book, but again. Could be a me problem.