We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone. It was a crappy night, and I just wanted a book that would make me happy. I wanted something pleasant that I could knock out in one sitting, curled up in my bed and drinking tea. I thought The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry would be fine enough. I was wrong. It was exactly what I needed. A.J. Fikry is the […]
Sometimes books don’t find us until the right time.
A.J. Fikry is a middle aged widower who owns a bookstore on a tiny island; his bookstore is failing and he spends his nights drinking himself to oblivion. On one such evening he wakes up to discover his “retirement plan,” a priceless copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s Tamerlane, has been stolen. Then a baby turns up on Fikry’s doorstep with a note indicating the mother’s hope that her intellectual toddler would be better in his hands. Despite his lack of experience with children, Fikry takes a shine to […]
“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”
This book was so cute. Another reviewer — I think on CBR, might have been Goodreads — astutely pointed out that the main character would have hated it. Absolutely true, but I’m much less curmudgeonly, and thought it was adorable. “We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.” A.J. Fikrey owns an independent bookstore on tiny Alice Island. Books have always been a major part of his life, but recently his life has been pretty bad: […]
I have some THOUGHTS, but overall not bad.
The Birthright books are very, very similar in tone and flow into each other plot-wise, so it’s easiest to review them together as a group, but I’ll break down the exact plot in each for posterity’s sake. The series is composed of: 1. All These Things I’ve Done — Anya Balanchine is a teenager who happens to also be the eldest daughter of a deceased crime boss, though the family still operates under the guidance of her uncle. Their trade is chocolate, because in near […]