Thank you so much Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

I found this novel delightful, it was atmospheric, and this being narrated by love and death along with others was a unique experience. The perspective of love was my favorite. It was a powerful message. You can’t always understand love fully but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dive in headfirst anyway. I don’t want to say too much because to avoid spoilers, but I really enjoyed this, and I would recommend this.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and Netgalley for the chance to read the ARC of The Little Village of Book Lovers.
I will read anything that has to do with the love of books and sharing the love of reading with others which is why I was drawn to this book instantly. We sprinkle in a little magic, a quaint town, and loves light and you have the makings of a cute read. This was an easy read and a pallet cleanser for me with all of the thrillers I read. It’s not my typical read, but a very sweet little novel.

This was a pretty nice book. The premise is very sweet and a great concept. I think if someone is looking for a sweet hopeful book about love that is beautifully written, I think this is the read for people.

Though there were some good elements to this book, this was the book for me. I appreciate the setup and the writing, but was a very slow start. It felt like there was a lot of fluff even though the book is so short already. I thought there were some great characters in the book, but we didn't get to spend nearly as much time with them as I would have liked. The personification of the olive tree and Love, Fate, Logic, etc. seemed to be sprinkled in without doing much for the story.

Overall, this is a decent book, but not one that I was too interested in or found myself too excited about.

I read this as a part of an arc and it was adorable. It was unique and different from other books I have read. I mean a book about book lovers, in an adorable town where it felt like I was there?!?!? I was hooked.

Like The Little Paris Bookshop, The Little Village of Book Lovers is a love letter to books. I found this book to be so lovely and beautiful that it brought me to tears, not from sadness but from the overwhelming presence of Love. This novel describes the influence of literature and love on the people of a small French village. Guided by Love and a young girl, relationships are revealed by glowing lights and influenced by matchmaking powers.
This story has fantastic elements about love, revolution, books, humanity, wonder, and language. It is simply fantastic! I adored this book!



Thank you to Penguin Random House & NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy.

I found this novel hard to follow. I was unable to connect to the storyline and struggled to understand what was going on.

There is no mistaking that this book is a companion to The Little Paris Bookshop as it kicks off with Jean Perdu, the bookseller. I loved that book and expected more of a connection to it, and I was disappointed that Love is the narrator.

The story was more about matching lovers to each other than matching books to readers. Marie-Jeanne, the foster daughter of the Elsa and Francis, learned as a young girl that she had the talent for matchmaking. Francis, a delivery man turned lending library librarian, learned the power of books by practicing Perdu’s ability to recommend books to readers. “He realized that people might read the same book but to each of them it was different. Valerie (the other lending library librarian) had described it as scouring powder, but to this man it was….What was it exactly? A long-lost friend. It was amazing.”

Unfortunately, that was the most interesting part of the book. Thanks Random House for the ARC. You publish some of my favorite books.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishers for a complimentary copy of this novel! This is a very unique and inspiring novel. It is an explosion of descriptive lyrical paragraphs! A joy to read! It is a book about Love, narrated by Love and other of life’s eventualities! An Olive Tree even narrates some passages! This book is a book about books! It is a book that gives insight into how Fate, Reason, Logic, Love, Desire, Pleasure, Despair, Passion, Love, Death, Creativity, Lust, Intelligence, Fear, Humor, and others, make a mark on human life!!!
Available July 25, 2023!

This was such a fun and sweet read. It makes me want to get lost in a quaint town and wander in and out of book stores and cafes. This was a perfect hammock book!

In the Little Village of Book Lovers, Nina George crafts an interesting portrait of abstract concepts we all struggle to understand. Narrated by the emotion of Love we are carried through the processes of falling in love, finding, losing love, and maintaining love during our lives. Other emotions such as fear, jealousy, anger, pride, and fate make their voices heard. George uses the mysticism of orphaned Marie-Jeanne and her mobile library to capture ordinary people's romantic potential.
#thankyourNETGALLEYforthischarmingARC!

DID NOT FINISH 44 percent

This was tedious. I got up to 44 percent and nothing was still happening outside of people being the most twee ever and a pie in the sky discussion about love, fate, and books. I just couldn't force read anymore and I threw in the towel.

"The Little Village of Book Lovers" follows a young girl called Marie-Jeanne in the 1960s in France. Marie-Jeanne has a special connection to Love. Love narrates the story of Marie-Jeanne and others around her and just kind of makes you want to shake them.

Marie-Jeanne is written as too good to be true and her "gift" started to make me roll my eyes.

Love was annoying. There I said it.

The other characters are written very poorly and to the point of repetition. Yes, I get that Marie-Jeanne's foster mother really does love her and her husband and she's scared to tell them so. You now how I know that, the author said this about 1,000 times in the 44 percent of the book I read.

The flow was just awful. I don't know how much the book shows of Marie-Jeanne's life, but it was a slog of a mess to even get to 44 percent.

I could not stay awake while reading this book. Multiple time over multiple days, I'd try to read and just fall asleep.
The book is about a baby girl who is physically touched by love. Because of this she can see a glow around a person which is their love for someone else. Meanwhile her father starts what is essentially a bookmobile.
The story was not at all what I expected it to be. I never thought it would be so boring.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book and to the publisher for an early read of this ARC in exchange for a review.

I think this book is just a little out of my normal so that's why I didn't enjoy it. I loved tbe concept though. There's so many good messages behind the plot and dialogue.

4.25/5 stars

This was a bit different from my normal book leanings, but I really enjoyed it. It was unique as it personified/gave actual voice to emotions/traits/experiences (i.e. Love, Death, Charm, Lust, Fate, etc.).

With connections to The Little Paris Bookshop, this story takes place in a small village in the south of France (1960s) and is centered around a young girl named Marie-Jeanne who is marked by the touch of Love as a small infant. As she grows, she realizes that she can see the shining marks that Love leaves behind on each person in her village and how those lights become brighter as they are nearer to those who are meant to be their soulmates. And even though tragically Marie-Jeanne cannot see her own light, she begins her journey as a matchmaker.

Along the way, her foster father Francis begins a new job venture, operating the area's first mobile library. Traveling by car and horseback through the small mountain towns of the Nyons region, Marie-Jeanne and Francis begin to see how books truly bring folks and their communities together. Some books can lead to love, others to character growth and still others to new ways of seeing life in general.

This book had qualities of a parable, a poem and even a touch of the best kind of rom coms. The writing flowed beautifully, often lyrically poetic in its passages, and the words were simply a joy to take in. I embraced and rooted for all of the characters, but it was Marie-Jeanne who stole the show for me. Sweet but with backbone, fearless, humorous and dedicated, she is a force of nature and a force for all that is good.

I found this book an enjoyably quaint and heartwarming experience and would recommend it to anyone searching for a lovely, feel-good story.

My sincere thanks to the author, NetGalley and Ballantine Books for providing the free early arc of The Little Village of Book Lovers for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

This was my first book by Nina George and it was written beautifully. It did start off a little slow, but then it did pick up. Marie-Jeanne was born into love and she now helps others see love between themselves. I really enjoyed how the book was written in different POVs and loved how the characters grew throughout the story. The setting of rural France, the bookmobile, and the passion for books was very enjoyable. Also, the cover is beautiful and definitely drew me into wanting to read this book.

Thank you NetGalley, and Ballatine Random House for this ARC in exchange my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the digital ARC. This review is my own opinion. I fell in love with the description of the book and was so excited to read it. Unfortunately, I just did not enjoy it. I loved the beginning of the book in which Marie-Jeanne was touched by love. The ability to see the light of love was bestowed upon her, a gift that she used to match people together. It soon became a heavy read, one that needed my complete attention and my attention span did not cooperate. I did not finish the book. I realized from the first few chapters that I was in over my head. This book will undoubtably be "all that and more" for others so I will give it 3 stars.

Thank you for this book Netgalley and publishers.

I get overexcited about books with "book" or "book shop" or anything book related in the title and then...I discover they're a historical fiction and I struggle to read it. This was one of those and I did not finish it. I am sure it is a great book if you enjoy that genre, my sister has enjoyed this authors other books, but she likes this genre.

This is a companion novel to George's book The Little Paris Bookshop.
Marie-Jeanne is a young child with a special gift. She sees glows around certain people—not like halos, more like spots of glimmer, on one person's fingertips, another's shoulder etc. it takes a while for her to realize that these are indications of Love, and that these areas glow more brightly when a person's true love is in close proximity. So Marie-Jeanne plays matchmaker, all the while waiting for her own true love.

This book is so poorly written that I would give it 0 stars if I could. Save your money; there are much better books out there.

I loved the prose of this book as well as the mystical quality.. I loved that it was mainly narrated by Love. And i loved the story itself.
Many thanks to Random House and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.