Title: The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
Author: Katarina Bivald
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication Date: January 19th, 2016 (originally published 2013)
ISBN: 9781492623441
Number of Pages: 400
How I Got It: NetGalley
Format: Kindle
Goodreads Description: Here
My Review:
I am a sucker for a book about books. This selection popped up on NetGalley months ago and when Tamara and I discussed Book Talk options, it was a hands down winner. We thought "let's start 2016 with this!" Then I realized I double booked myself (haha, get it? booked? ok....) with my vacation for the first week of the year. Thank goodness T was flexible and we pushed back our feature one week. Which actually meant more time for our giveaway (don't forget to enter below!)
Having lived in Iowa and Illinois for the first 23 years of my life, I especially loved little things like Sara's realization that people wear hats advertising tractors (I grew up with this and was puzzled when the trucker hat phenomenon caught on,) Taco John's (boy do I miss Potato Oles,) and the fact that the miles and miles of corn are only broken up by a field or two of soybeans. (Quick story: it was so flat and unpopulated where I lived that I could see the school bus turn off the main road and it wouldn't make it to my house for another 10 minutes.)
There were so many great quotes in this read such as "As long as she had books and money, nothing could be a catastrophe." Or what reader can't relate to this one: "People were strange like that. They could be completely uninterested in you, but the moment you picked up a book, you were the one being rude."
Small towns are not always warm and welcoming, quite often they are the opposite. Outsiders are considered outsiders for years and sometimes generations. The story was charming and I loved the idea of a whole town being transformed by reading and embracing Sara, but based on my experiences I'm not so sure it is realistic. But isn't that the point of reading? To escape to an alternate reality?
***Disclaimer:: I was given a copy of this release in exchange for an honest review. I received no additional compensation. ***
Enter the Giveaway Here!!
3 comments
Sounds like a lighthearted reading, which is so good during or after a vacation in the sun. :-)
I think this one will be a reading group pick of the year. Yours is the second blogger review I have read and I am pretty much won over.
This was a sweet book without being sappy. Thanks for commenting Judy and Carmen!!
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