Book Review: The Book Swap

I scrambled to enter when Goodreads offered a giveaway for Tessa Bickers' The Book Swap. Although I did not win, I discovered access to the book through Hoopla (again in audio, as are so many of the books I've consumed recently). What a great story idea. Imagine you accidentally donate your favorite book (well annotated in the margins) to a Little Free Library (Hmm, accidental donations? We're familiar with that!). When you go back, you discover the book is safely there, but filled with further marginalia from a mystery man. Thus, begins a ping-pong of correspondence and intellectual rumination. What a fabulous premise! I'd love to live this out myself, ha!

Erin Connolly is mortified to learn she carelessly donated her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird to her neighborhood Little Free Library. It packs a double punch because the book contained a last message on a postcard from her late best friend Bonnie. That message encouraged Erin to live out her dreams. Erin is far from living her dreams. Trapped in a job she loathes, she cannot stop coping with life by talking with Bonnie whenever she manifests in a chair in Erin's room.

Enter Mystery Man. He responds to her thoughtful marginalia with equally intriguing comments of his own. He invites her to meet up with him in another book that he has left in the Little Free Library for her to find. The correspondence is lively. The attraction is intense. But, of course, complications arise. Desperate to keep someone else from running off with the next book from Mystery Man, Erin hounds down a neighbor and offers to tutor his daughter if he will relinquish the book to her.

Although this was not a clean read, I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, the story line, and the observations and comments on books I've read. If you love books, especially epistolary novels, this is a sure winner. A love song to books and second chances, the tale makes the reader wish it was them enjoying a neighborly book swap. I've never donated books to a Little Free Library. Believe me, I'm more game now. 

Even though romance is not something I seek, it would be delightful to interact over favorite books. Indeed, I think it would be cool to start up a round-robin book exchange. I'd send a favorite book on to another reader, who would join in comments and pass it along to another reader until the book travelled full circle back. Of course, then we'd have to send it along the chain again so everyone could read the accumulated marginalia. Alas, I'm not one to write in the margins. Nor do I have a set group in mind to take part in this imaginary round-robin book exchange. For me, I'll have to settle for the fun of reading Tessa Bickers' delightful novel.

📒Content Caution: sex and language