“The Lost for Words Bookshop” by Stephanie Butland

Title: The Lost for Words Bookshop
Author: Stephanie Butland
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press
Year: 2018
Genre(s): contemporary fiction, drama, romance
Part of a Series: No
Rating: 


Why I read it: A book club selection

Summary: Lovejoy’s whole life revolves around the bookstore where she works. She doesn’t have family except for Archie, the shop’s eccentric owner, and prefers books to people. Poet Nathan brings a change to her life in more ways than one—besides bringing the possibility of romance, Lovejoy’s past starts to come back to haunt her. Will she finally be able to make peace with it in order to move forward or will it be too much for her to face, forcing her further into isolation?

Review: At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the story. It seemed a bit boring, about a girl who worked in a bookshop and didn’t much else. I wasn’t too sure where any of it was going—would she go on adventures in her mind because of the book? Was it really about the people who came into the bookstore? Or was it really just about a girl who worked in a bookshop?

In the end, it really was just about a girl who worked in a bookshop—but it was also so much more than that and I’m glad I didn’t give up early on.

There is a lot more to LJ than meets the eye and it slowly unravels as her past comes back to haunt her—she starts to receive items that remind her of the mother she is estranged from. She starts to realize how she’s been letting what happened when she was a child keep her from living and begins to make peace with it, thanks for to her eccentric boss and the magician/poet she starts to fall for.

Butland unravels the mystery in a wonderful way, one that starts to give you the clues and lets you piece it together. Even then, the final reveal still feels fresh and heart-wrenching as LJ deals with it. The story is more about how we sometimes push our feelings down so far and let them weigh us down like an anchor. How we have to let them out, to deal with our traumas in order to grow—to bring up the anchor and finally move forward. It’s a lesson not only LJ needs to learn but also Nate and Rob.

I feel the bookstore could’ve become more of a character than it was. After all, it was almost the entirety of LJ’s world. There was good description but I don’t think Butland ever brought it to the next level, like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series. But that’s a minor quibble in an otherwise good story.

Bottom line: A slow start but stick with it and you’ll be rewarded.
Sex: Mentioned but nothing graphic

Moonlight Musing

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