The Borrower

by Rebecca Makkai

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

Rebecca Makkai's novel was told from the point of view of an librarian -- someone who loves books, loves her job and her patrons. and there are book references on every page. Sounds like a book lover's dream right? Unfortunately, no.

Ian Drake is a ten year old patron of the library whose parents have enrolled him in anti-gay classes. Lucy Hull is a librarian at said library. After discovering Ian early one morning camped out at the library takes it upon herself to "go for a drive" with Ian after passing judgement on the Drake's parenting skills.

Once Lucy drove out of Hannibal's city limits the book began to fall apart. Lucy criss-crosses all over the U.S. letting Ian be the entertainment director. After making a get-away to Chicago to visit her parents pulling Ian off as a child of a former high school friend who attempted suicide. Her parents seem to buy this lukewarm lie and her father sends her off to the Pennsylvania to deliver a package to an old friend.

This is when it really gets weird. After a successful drop off and the use of ferret shampoo they continue on with the pointless exponentiation, because now Lucy realizes after an Amber Alert that she is a wanted woman for kidnapping. After what seems like hundreds of pages exclusively dedicated to fast food joints, Ian's inhaler and "the license plate game" we wind up in Vermont, just outside the Canada border. In Vermont, they visit the grave of Ian's made up relative and some kind of boney finger relic at a church (this could be compared to the bagel Mother Teresa). It is after this and becoming paranoid of a car following them (which is very Lolita/Humbert Humbert with out the pedophilia) that it is decided that Ian should go home via the Greyhound. Unfortunately, Lucy is now a suspect in a kidnapping and can never return to Hannibal Missouri.

The Borrower had so much potential but just didn't live up to the book jacket. I almost felt that the author was seeing just how obscure she could make it and fell into a black hole that she couldn't come out of. Rebecca Makkai kind of ties it up well with a "I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go" ending but just not enough to make up for past mistakes.