The Bookshop : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: If Only There Were More Than Five Stars
Review: Penelope Fitzgerald's The Book Shop has entered the ranks of my favourite books, along with Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in This Castle and Geoff Ryman's Was, and a novel I that try to push on to all of my friends. Similar to Jackson's book, this beautiful little novel is about one person's struggle against a community's narrow mindedness. The story is told with the author's usual degree of gentle humour over icy emotions, with quirky characters developed in an amazingly crisp and illuminating short hand. The reader will identify and fall in love with Florence Green, who has the audacity to open up a book shop in a town that does not have one. One cannot help but catch a little of her optimism and this will drag the reader along and down with Florence. This book is a perfect gem that sparkles and dazzles the reader before it snatches the light away. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Fitzgerald's characters are incredibly real and engaging
Review: The Bookshop is probably my favorite of this author's work so far. It's not a nice story. Not all great stories necessarily have happy endings. Priceless scene between the two aristocrats toward the end of the book. Fitzgerald takes provincial nastiness and describes it with such beauty it's impossible to be too disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: a different view
Review: This book should be read as Greek tragedy wherein the inevitable downfall is insured by a flaw in the heroine's character. In this case, Florence's hubris alienates everyone about her. If read as just another story about small-town pettiness, this short novel is 100 pages too long.

Rating:
Summary: a different view
Review: This book should be read as Greek tragedy wherein the inevitable downfall is insured by a flaw in the heroine's character. In this case, Florence's hubris alienates everyone about her. If read as just another story about small-town pettiness, this short novel is 100 pages too long.