The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson

The Bookshop of Yesterdays

by Amy Meyerson

"A woman inherits a beloved bookstore and sets forth on a journey of self-discovery in this poignant debut about family, forgiveness and a love of reading. Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric uncle Billy's bookstore, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But on Miranda's twelfth birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda's life. She doesn't hear about him again until sixteen years later when she receives unexpected news: Billy has died and left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy, and one final scavenger hunt. When Miranda returns home to Los Angeles and to Prospero Books--now as its owner--she finds clues that Billy has hidden for her inside novels on the store's shelves, in locked drawers of his apartment upstairs, in the name of the store itself. Miranda becomes determined to save Prospero Books and to solve Billy's last scavenger hunt. She soon finds herself drawn into a journey where she meets people from Billy's past, people whose stories reveal a history that Miranda's mother has kept hidden--and the terrible secret that tore her family apart. Bighearted and trenchantly observant, The Bookshop of Yesterdays is a lyrical story of family, love and the healing power of community. It's a love letter to reading and bookstores, and a testament to how our histories shape who we become"--Provided by publisher.

Reviewed by MurderByDeath on

3 of 5 stars

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I didn't much like this book, although the story itself isn't bad.  I'm assuming the author was going for a massive plot reveal, built up from the scavenger hunt the main character is sent on after the death of her uncle.  But that plot twist was obvious to me from the very first part of the book, which made the rest rather anti-climatic, although I still enjoyed the scavenger hunt aspect.

The characters themselves didn't much work for me either; Meyerson's attempt to build complicated, layered characters just resulted in an attitude of indifference; the main character's waffling over the confrontation with her mother; her mother's complete indifference to her daughter's obvious distress; the father's complete check-out of the whole thing; the romantic interest ... totally uninterested in romance.

It just didn't work for me.

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Reading updates

  • 21 April, 2020: Started reading
  • 29 April, 2020: Finished reading
  • 8 September, 2020: Reviewed