I was hopeful that this would be a 5 star read, and I did enjoy a lot of elements, but I've ended up with such mixed feelings.

My main issue is that I just can't make sense of what the book was aiming to do, exactly. There's so many incongruences in what the main character wants and is striving for. At the start of the book, he travels back to his hometown from New York after getting laid off and losing his appartment. He leaves his friends behind and goes pretty much no contact with them for the duration of his stay home. This immediately means we don't see what his connection with New York truly is.

In his hometown, he reconnects with his childhood best friend and gets to meet a lot of queer people who've stayed behind in this small town instead of leaving like he did as a teen. Now, he has to figure out if he wants to stay in this small town, or go back to New York.

This is an understandable dilemma, except I never felt like the main character was really thinking about anything and growing in any way, shape or form. By the end of the book, I was surprised at the choices he makes, because we just never get any depth into why he'd want to make this choice.

There's also a time travel element, with the main character travelling back in time in the bookstore where he worked as a teen, and meeting his old self. I thought this element was incredibly underused, and I didn't feel like it had all that much impact on either the main character or the story.

I was a little taken aback by the ending, because I'd expected this to be a romance novel. I think that's because it's published by Avon, but I did check and saw it isn't being marketed as a romance, so that's on me for assuming! I just wanted to mention it in case you're making the same assumption.

There was a lot I liked about this book but also a lot I didn’t love. I wanted more time in the bookstore. The romance feels unnecessary and wasn’t what I was expecting. Darby’s decision to return to New York made sense but I didnt feel like we really got the reasons why he decided it from the book. It felt abrupt. In fact many of the plot lines felt abrupt and at the same time the story felt strangely slow.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC for review.

I really liked this. I didn't read the synopsis closely and didn't realize it's a very personal story about coming out as trans and accepting choices. The parallel time travel was fascinating without getting bogged down in science, adding to the fantasy of the story. I really liked how the story ended (no spoilers) because it felt real and earned.

I would recommend this to anyone struggling with identity, and who appreciates some magic in their life.

The In-Between Bookstore is a lovely fiction read about love and self discovery. This was a good book and I definitely recommend it.

"I feel like some sort of dam has finally broken--one that's been cracking for years--and the flood is driving me forward."

Having recently been fired just before his thirtieth birthday, Darby runs from his life and friends in NYC to return home to the small town of Oak Falls, Illinois. Upon returning home, Darby visits the local bookstore, In Between Books, where he finds his pre-transition, teenage self working behind the counter. As he reconnects with the people of his past, most notably his ex-best friend, Michael, Darby struggles to overcome the harsh feelings that come with growing up closeted in a small town. Can he change the events of his past that led to his present? Or will his efforts simply cause more pain?

This book is an intriguing work of fiction featuring LGBTQ+ characters and relationships mixed with a tiny bit of fantasy. I loved seeing Darby navigate the relationships of his past and discover the new communities of his old hometown. However, I felt like the writing style was often a little choppy and I was underwhelmed by the ending. I really do love how many different identities, relationships, and struggles were included in this book, and I would love to see more like this in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon and Harper Voyager, and Edward Underhill for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. Stay tuned for the release of The In-Between Bookstore on January 13, 2025.

I loved this book, even though it was surprisingly melancholy at the end. Hopeful, but wistful. I love Underhill's other books, so I was excited for this ARC. It is a second chance romance featuring time travel and a bookstore which was enough to entice me. But what actually captivated me was how well it spoke to the experience of growing up queer in a small town and not knowing how to reconcile how homesick you can be for it after leaving, with how much you never felt you belonged there, no matter how much you ever wanted to. Leaving somewhere because it felt suffocating, and then missing it anyway. I'm way in my feelings after finishing this, more than I thought I would be, but I'm happy anyway.

Thank you to the publisher for my arc!


AHHHH.. this book gave me really high expectations but the ending just didn't give me that satisfactory bow to tie the entire story together. I loved this story and following Darby as he was just trying to figure out who he is and what he wants in life and seeing him navigate being trans and what happened with Michael was so heartwarming to read. I just had really high expectations for the ending but it still tied the story together really well.