Review: The Little Village of Book Lovers
I think the main thing I realized while reading The Little Village of Book Lovers is that I'm not a super-fan of the Love or Death perspective. I respect it because it's a really hard POV to write from. Emotions, states of being, and other non-tangible entities are hard to relate to as the reader, so I can't imagine it's easy to get into their heads and hearts as a writer. Beyond that epiphany, however, I did enjoy this trip back into some part of the Little Paris Bookshop world.
Summary
The Little Village of Book Lovers is the book within a book. In Little Paris Bookshop we learn that the main character, Jean, is in part inspired by Southern Lights -- a book written by a mysterious author who only ever had (as far as anyone knows) the one book success. Southern Lights is an invented novel that the author of both Paris Bookshop and Book Lovers, Nina George, decided to write.
Following Marie-Jeanne, a young girl who can see Love as a physical light no one else can see, the story catalogues her encounters with the people in her small French village who have experience Love in all its mysterious ways. Taken under the loving care of adoptive parents, Marie-Jeanne spends her childhood and young adulthood searching for the answer to all her questions about Love and all the forms it takes.
Eventually, Marie-Jeanne, along with her father, start a traveling library to spread books and all they have to offer to even the most obscure valleys of the town she calls home. As time moves on and Marie-Jeanne matures, she decides to put her talent of seeing the love spots - the Southern Lights - to good use and plays matchmaker on one beautiful and fateful night.
Review
As I said before, I'm not a super-fan of the Love or Death perspective. This story is told in its entirety from the perspective of Love who stays quite close to Marie-Jeanne throughout her story. And though this story definitely leant itself to a third-person narration, it was, at times, hard to feel close to the characters.
Without a doubt, part of my disconnect is my personal struggle with the POV. I noticed this same problem with The Book Thief, and even Mitch Albom's The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto. I enjoyed both, and really, all three, books tremendously, but have solidified the idea that any book narrated by Life, Love, Death, or Music should be approached with caution and some patience.
Otherwise, I loved this book a lot! I've struggled quite a bit this year with reading consistently and quickly, so I was excited to get back to The Little Paris Bookshop world. I loved the setting, the characters who are full of life and widely vary in personality, and how you can see the bits throughout the story that Jean Perdu of Paris Bookshop would have held onto and lived by.
The whole story embraces the quaint and provincial while also capturing the feeling of worlds expanding. I've always loved The Little Paris Bookshop, and will definitely revisit The Little Village of Book Lovers.
Happy reading!
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