Just, so, damn, quaint.
I really needed a book. A happy book. A quick book. The kind where you know they’ll kiss at the end and everything is all better. And I discovered this book through this really great review, seriously I’m not even going to try and top that. Click the link to read a great review. Keep reading here to find my random ramblings about the book.
This is a book you make tea for. And you settle down with no great expectations.
The readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is predictable, cliché. The main character, Sara, travels from Sweden to meet her pen pal, Amy, in a SMALL town, Broken Wheel, in America. Except Amy doesn’t ever come to pick her up because Amy is dead. Sara winds up in Broken Wheel anyway and spends so much time been totally stupid and slightly uninteresting. Anyways, they bonded over their love of books and so Sara decides to stay in this small town and open up a bookstore. Because of course she does. The beginning is far too long, but the plot is not as trite as it sounds. However the small town never really got under my skin, it was quaint and sort of pastel colored and I was really confused, because I didn’t understand that Amy was supposed to be an old lady. I was often confused about the age of people. In the end when people started pairing off I had to reevaluate some of my mental images. I was like…oh they’re gonna do it? Guess he’s not sixty then. I hope he’s not sixty.
Still it totally delivers on emotions and the plot runs somewhat insane in the end. In an entertaining, not at all believable way.
But, for a book that is all about love of books, please don’t define Jane Austen as chick lit! Jane Austen basically invented the unreliable narrator and revolutionized storytelling in novels. She is warm and hilarious and amazing. Not that chick lit is bad, but it definitely tells some people to steer clear and well everybody should read Jane Austen.
Not everyone should read The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend. But if you feel like crying this book totally delivers.