The perfect summer book. I loved this story - it's delightful. It takes a while to get going, but once it does, well, I was hooked. It;s so beautiful and the backstories are so rich and honestly it's everything I want for a balmy summer evening of reading. And now I want to go to Broken Wheel, Iowa, please. Books about books. I love them, and I loved this even more for the Guernsey feel it had to it. My Mum would LOVE this book...

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a charmingly engaging story about Sara, a Swedish 'tourist' visiting a tiny, no-hope town hidden deep in rural Iowa. It's a journey of discovery for both Sara and her newly-adopted town, Broken Wheel, not to mention the local residents. In fact, almost everyone in the book must overcome a set of obstacles and a personal barrier in order to make Broken Wheel into the once-prosperous town it once was. From love and confidence to dealing with loss, hopelessness and changing times, when you dig beneath the surface, you will discover all these issues and more.

As we follow Sara's journey, we begin to unravel more and more about the lives of Broken Wheel's residents. We learn about their lives, discover their motivation, inspiration, and the driving force behind their actions, yet for most, we find ourselves inexplicably drawn into their lives. Although they are initially introduced as little more than your stereotypical range of small-town inhabitants, Bivald ensures every character has a purpose and every purpose contributes to the overall story arc in some small way. This clever use of characters helps to guarantee a watertight story with a whole cast of brilliant supporting characters.

When it comes to Sara herself, it won't be long before you end up rooting for her to succeed. Sara is an unashamed bibliophile, yet even if you aren't interested in that aspect of her life, there is still plenty more to keep readers turning page after page - much like Sara herself.

Although the characters undoubtedly stole the show, the plot is what lets the book down. The ending is clear from a very early stage in the book but although it is entirely predictable, it still possesses a unique charm that almost helps me forgive the plot's lack of originality.

Overall, though, this book is a great read and it would certainly make the perfect accompaniment to a lazy weekend spot of relaxation.

A beautiful, beautiful book! A must read for all the people in the world with even a teeny-tiny mount of love for books!

I love books about books, book clubs, bookstores, etc. This was no exception. The writing was intriguing and the plot kept my turning pages!

Broken Wheel, Iowa population 637 is a town where everyone not only knows you but knows all about your parents and grandparents. People don't move to Broken Wheel, they move away from it. That's the way it's always been until Sara Linqvist arrives. Sara and longtime Broken Wheel resident, Amy Harris, have been writing to one another for years. Amy invites Sara to leave Sweden and come to Broken Wheel for an extended visit. All the arrangements are in place. Unfortunately,the day Sara arrived is the day the town buried Amy. The rest of the book is about how Sara and Broken Wheel change each other.The characters are interesting and their relationships are complex. I enjoyed reading this delightful story.

Due to unexpected circumstances, I was unable to finish this selection. Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity.

I loved the small town characters and “feel” of the story. There was a genuineness to the writing and storytelling.

I have loved this book ever since I read it--it is such a great story! I have recommended it to all of my friends.

This was highly recommended by several friends. Thanks to a free download weekend I was able to enjoy it. It was everything they promised it would be.

It's a nice feelgood story, and it reasonated with me because it's a book about books & authentic connection and I love that. But it isn't for everyone. I really like it though.

I loved this book even more than I thought I would when I first saw the cover! It took me much longer to read than I would of liked, and normally take, but I started a new job so that has sadly cut into my reading time.

Every character in this very special book is unique and wonderful in his/her own way. It's lovely how Sara and Amy connected over books, and how their friendship ended up bringing out the best in everyone in Broken Wheel and brought out the best in Sara once she found her home away from home.

I don't usually read books over-and-over again because I'd rather read something new, but I know that when time goes by, I will revisit Broken Wheel!

I hope there is more story to tell!

Thank you for the chance to review this book, however, unfortunately, I was unable to download this title before it was archived

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist—even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory. All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town.

Well, this was one of the dullest books I have come across in quite a while. Rather than rant about how bad things were, I will just make a short, handy list:

* No character development;
* No plot (that I could find);
* Reading about people reading isn't fun;
* Spoilers for other books isn't clever - it's annoying;
* The romance stories were boring and predictable.

That should just about do it.
I gave this two stars cos I really hate to only leave one - but one star is truly what it deserves.


Paul
ARH

I absolutely loved this cute story. I think it will be a great addition to the books that I recommend for bookclubs. The characters are diverse and interesting. I think that the story appeals to anyone who loves books and is searching for somewhere to call home.

I love books about books. This novel was about "book love", had delightful characters and an interesting story. The image of people watching the main character read in the window was particularly memorable. I heartily recommend it.

Would recommend it a good story you feel like you are on a rollercoaster if emotions

A good book club title, great for fans of Fredrik Backman.

I am not the slightest bit interested in reading about middle America, however this setting provided the blankest of canvases for our unlikely heroine to enter and provide some colour to her own and everyone elses lives through books. I enjoyed reading the little anecdotes about different books and little facts like how Penguin books got started. The basic love story was no surprise and probably had a little too much going over and over which slightly detracted from the overall charm of the story which was more about a friendship which was based on a love of books breathed life into a person and town that was really dying.

This is a book lover's book, much like Elizabeth Eagen's A Window Opens (my favourite book of 2015). I didn't like it as much as A Window Opens, but I did enjoy reading it.

This is a relatively inoffensive book with not a lot of swearing or sex and a pretty gentle, very predictable storyline. There are A LOT of characters with not tons of backstory, so it was a little hard to keep them straight and be invested in their lives (and the two old ladies who reminded me of the old men on the balcony in The Muppet Show" kinda just disappeared). I wasn't particularly enamoured with either of the main characters (a bit too much Elizabeth/Mr. Darcy going on there, but not as well done, obviously). But..I do believe in the magical power of a bookstore to bring back to life a dying town (it could happen, people!) and I could absolutely see myself sitting in Sara's book shop for the rest of my life happily reading away, so that forgives a lot of faults I may have with this book.

I wished to read The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald published by Sourcebooks Landmark and translated impressively well by Alice Menzies from Swedish from an age.

I loved the cover and the story sounded very intriguing.

I recently requested a copy at the publisher and I obtained it thanks to NetGalley. I admit that I haven't been deluded at all.

It's a book written with sentiment, "feeling the story" in profundity, and giving to each protagonist a proper and strong character. The various chapters end always with a letter written by one of the two main protagonists: Sara and Amy.

It's a story of old-fashioned correspondents this one between two book lovers with their own messy lives, one living in a town in Sweden and working in a bookstore and another one living in a very tiny corner of Iowa: Broken Wheel.

There is, in this correspondence, real, sincere friendship, the possibility of sharing good thoughts, good reading, and good stories and tales about their respective lives.
Amy will introduce Sara, without maybe wanting it, or thinking that who knows? one day she would have loved that place, her own world and people: the ones of Broken Wheels. Special people with each of them a story behind, their troubles, their weakness.

The picture taken with words of Broken Wheel , its community and the various characters, George, John, Tom, Caroline, Grace (everyone was named Grace, they called her Madeleine but her destiny was this one, to be a bar owner to her and so she is Grace as her ancestors for everyone) outlined with precision and surely the ones you can meet in a little community more dead than alive.
I can tell that because I live in a little rural countryside.

The story starts when Sara, unemployed because the bookstore in Sweden closed decides, why not? to afford for some months, two exactly, in the USA for a visit at her beloved friend Amy with which she exchanges letters, many books and great letters about their life.
Amy answers enthusiastically at this idea and so it's all done.
Sara arrives just when Amy was buried. Dead? Amy is dead?

When? How? What happened exactly? She is not just devastated. She doesn't know where to go, what to do, while she is in Amy's house.
The answer from the people of the town: she must stay at Amy's house. She will stay at Amy's house. No rent at all. It's just a word: hospitality.
The following days as it happens in all little communities people invites her out for a coffee or a beer or for eating something and they offer always lunches, dinners, beverages.
This story keeps Sara tormented. She can pay. They are so nice.
What can she does to these people, Tom John, George, Grace, for thanking them all for being so kind and for let her feel at home?

One day she enters in Amy's house. There weren't books in the other rooms of Amy's house. Maybe she would have found them there.

Yes it was true. All her beloved books stayed close to her since at the moment of her departure.

Maybe the only thing to do is this one: to open thanks to an old store owned by Amy's husband, dead many years ago, a bookstore.

Not any person in Broken Wheel thinks that this one is a winning idea, because no one read.

There are not in any Broken Wheel's houses books.

Books doesn't mean anything to the people of Broken Wheel. Why reading, they think?

They all help Sara to opening the store, someone discomforted for the choice of Sara, thinking that this one is for sure a terrible idea and no one buy any books when Sara opens the bookstore.

She stays per hours closed in her store, reading and reading, lost who knows? in the tormented love stories of Bridget Jones with her Mr Darcy and Daniel Clever, both fascinating men or feeling the atmosphere of the Profound South of the USA, with Idgie, Ruth and yum! such a delicious barbecue, in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, or who knows maybe re-reading The Redbird Christmas, a great lesson of a life that can re-born psychologically and physically thanks to the love of other people.
You know: Fannie Flagg is enchanting.
You could find her devastating while she was reading Jane Eyre a moving book one of the best classic around, written with pathos, feeling, sentiment and with great and beautiful words.

Sara created a special place where she put all the books exchanged and favorite by Amy and called it: Broken Wheel Recommend.

The Oak Tree Bookstore, as Sara called the store started to receive appreciation from the citizens of Hope the closest town, this one with a different life, many readers, different cultural level.

The arrival of the citizens of Hope will create the occasion for bringing to the bookstore as you will see also the other reluctant readers of Broken Wheel for a story of pride, involving also the local pastor of the city.

In the while Sara discovers something else: that since she in the USA she is not just a reader of many interesting books. She has a life.

And people needs her at different levels. She has been in grade to create unthinkable situations 'till recent past. She is an element of eruption and at the same time unity between the community, an element of discovery and novelty for the citizens of Broken Wheel. Someone able to make the difference, to singing another song, to bring new life in their discomforted place where no one knows because live there.

I guess Sara had a life also in Sweden with a job that could become crazy during the Christmas Time when in Nordic countries there is the tradition, in particular in Sweden to present many books for Christmas! During this period of the year everyone are ready for massive visits of customers all interested to present many books to their dear ones. Voracious readers? Yes, Swedish are surely voracious readers.

In general more than a million of books sold in Sweden for the occasion. Swedish are famous for presenting clothes, books during the festivities and they don't renounce at the old-fashioned Christmas greeting cards, so post offices are very visited during this Christmas-Time as well.

Sara finds a family in Broken Wheel, and it makes to her the difference.
Not only: Sara build bridges between the community and people close to them. Now thanks to her bookstore people arrives from closest town and it means tourism. Not only: they start to organize a market.


Her parents appears to be pretty rude with her when she tell them that Amy is dead. Her sister doesn't mind if she is alive or not.
What kind of life she can have in Sweden?
She analyzes her new life. More exciting, with her new friends, in another Continent and these new friends all so happy and joyous to see her around and all absolutely at a certain point involved for not let her return home!

Yes because a person can stay in the USA to work (and so the person is requested) only if there is a peculiarity still missing in an American. Selling books doesn't give to Sara all of it.

But love is just there, waiting for her...Will this one be the answer to all her problems and the book, yes this one in this case closing with a lot of happy endings or Sara will return after all in Sweden?

I can't tell you this final part, I just can tell you that if you want to read a book plenty of warmth, friendship, great sentiments, real values, a gem of the genre and the mirror of a little community, goes for it, because your money are very well spent.

I surely thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this eBook.