Book #10: The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
So, this was a blind read for me - a curious mixture of drama and magical realism, with three narrators.
First of all, there is Opaline, in the early to mid twentieth century, who is on a quest to find an unpublished second novel by Emily Brontë. It seemed like a fascinating idea, and I wasn't sure if this was based on any factual or rumoured evidence.
The other narrators are Martha, an Irish woman trapped in an abusive marriage that she is trying to escape from, and Henry, an English man who she meets. At first she believes Henry may be stalking her, but the truth is more bizarre.
So, apparently Henry believes in the existence of a "lost" bookshop that seems to have physically disappeared, and is also obsessed with a manuscript that belonged to Opaline. It is fairly obvious that Martha and Henry will become a typical will-they-or-won't-they type couple, hampered by the fact that Martha is married, and Henry is also engaged. To give their setting a more contemporary feel, Martha also compares them at one point to the central characters from Sally Rooney's "Normal People".
This novel was difficult to get into at first; I had to pay attention to the fact that there were multiple points of view, and that all of Opaline's chapters were told in flashback. In the end, I started to care more for the characters, and there was a lot of commentary on toxic masculinity, both with Martha's abusive husband, and the behaviour of Opaline's similarly obnoxious brother.
I really wanted to give this one 4 stars, but I wasn't too sure about the ending, which seemed slightly abrupt. It also felt that a lot of plot threads were left hanging, so it felt very ambiguous. I enjoyed the ride, but I would have liked something a bit more conclusive.
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