Michael @ Knowledge Lost
Written on Apr 25, 2014
This independent book shop on Alice Island just off the coast of Massachusetts sports the motto “No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World.” While the bookshop sounds like a quaint little indie store, Her first impression of A.J shook Amelia. He’s an old fashioned man set in his ways;
“I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be — basically gimmicks of any kind. .?.?. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children’s books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and — I imagine this goes without saying — vampires.”
I have to love A.J. Finky; he is a cranky literary snob and he reminds me of Richard Anger from Books or maybe he reminds me of myself. That is until he finds a two year old abandoned in his bookshop and his life changes completely. The story is a cute and quirky, but fairly predictable story but in all honesty, who really cares? The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry is a fun and bittersweet novel, it is hard to criticise a book that you enjoy reading from start to finish.
Everything you expect to happen happens and in the end all loose ends are wrapped up in a nice neat bow. While I think it is a little too neat, the tone of the entire novel is light and I can’t measure The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry any other way, no matter how much I might want to. A straightforward novel about love, family, loss, joy and more importantly books. I love all the little inscriptions that Fikry leaves for Maya in all those books. While I’m a little annoyed that the book that bring Fikry and Amelia closer together is the only fictional book in this novel.
Gabrielle Zevin did a great job here; all the characters are great, in particular Fikry and Maya. I have to admit, if I were to have a child I would want them to be like Maya. She is so smart, unrealistically smart, but I don’t care, I had fun with the novel. Zevin has written a fun novel and a winning formula for her, I must admit I’ve never heard of her and this is her seventh novel. She seems to be more known as a YA author, which explains why I’ve never heard of her.
The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry is an optimistic love letter to the independent bookstore, as a book lover I hope they remain strong for a very long time. I’ve always been a fan of the indie bookstore and books about books so this was a real thrill for me to read. I admit that Books was a better novel but two great books about books so far this year is a good effort. Especially when both books have a great independent bookstore at the centre of their plots. All book lovers should pick up both novels.
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2014/05/14/the-collected-works-of-a-j-fikry-by-gabrielle-zevin/