Review: Bookish People by Susan Coll

Bookish People by Susan Coll

Blurb from Goodreads:

A perfect storm of comedic proportions erupts in a DC bookstore over the course of one soggy summer week, punctuated by political turmoil, a celestial event, and a perpetually broken vacuum cleaner.

Independent bookstore owner Sophie Bernstein is burned out on books. Mourning the death of her husband, the loss of her favorite manager, her only child’s lack of aspiration, and the grim state of the world, she fantasizes about going into hiding in the secret back room of her store.

Meanwhile, renowned poet Raymond Chaucer has published a new collection, and rumors that he’s to blame for his wife’s suicide have led to national cancellations of his publicity tour. He intends to set the record straight—with an ultrafine Sharpie—but only one shop still plans to host him: Sophie’s.

Fearful of potential repercussions from angry customers, Sophie asks Clemi—bookstore events coordinator, aspiring novelist, and daughter of a famed literary agent—to cancel Raymond’s appearance. But Clemi suspects Raymond might be her biological father, and she can’t say no to the chance of finding out for sure.

This big-hearted screwball comedy features an intergenerational cast of oblivious authors and over-qualified booksellers—as well as a Russian Tortoise named Kurt Vonnegut Jr.—and captures the endearing quirks of some of the best kinds of people: the ones who love good books.

 I wanted so much more from this title, this cover, this description ! I was disappointed and rather sad after reading this book.  Although it tries (hard) to be funny and kind of chaotic and madcap, it left me melancholy instead.  If you are grieving, this may be a good book for you and/or want to read about everything going wrong that could wrong.  I just wasn't in that mood, necessarily.

Bookish People comes out next week on August 2, 2022 and you can purchase HERE.  

She sometimes thinks the world divides into two types of people, those who think books are for reading when there's nothing else to do, and those who avoid other things to do do in order to read books-- and unsurprisingly she's in the latter camp, but really, is that so awful?