Two Reviews

Here are two modern day love stories I’ve read. One worked for me the other one not so much but you may want to check these out.

“You can tell a lot about a person from the library books they borrow. June liked to play a game when things were quiet at work. She’d pick a patron and make up their life story based on the books they read.”

The Last Chance Library
By Freya Sampson
Source: Advance review copy
Published: August 2021
Rating: ★★★1/2

A story line about saving a library? Of course I want to read this. June Jones lives in a quiet village and spends her days working at the library and helping patrons find the perfect books but perhaps her life has seemed to be on hold for too long because since her mom died, she hasn’t left the village and can’t seem to find her sense of purpose.

However when the town council is threatening to shut down the library in favor of a bookmobile, June panics about the patrons and what will become of them as for many of them the library is the one constant in their lives. Before too long June is caught up in activism to save the library and soon she realizes that there is a lot more to a library than shelving books but also forming a community.

Not only that but June’s childhood friend, Alex Chen, is back in town and June slowly starts to find herself relying more on his help. While this may be a bit of a predictable read, there were some very funny moments with some of the library patrons, and just the idea of a group coming together to save a library makes for a cozy read. This is my first read by this author but I look forward to reading more.

“On Sunday I work in sans serif. Boldface for all the headers, because that’s what the client wants, apexes and vertexes flattened way out into big floors and tables for every letter, each one stretching and counting and demanding to be seen.”

Love Lettering
By Kate Clayborn
Source: Advance review copy
Published: December 2019
Rating: ★★

Meg Mackworth knows her way around fonts, pens and paper. She is a well-known planner known for her hand lettering. She’s now on the verge of making herself known in the world of planners by designing her own line when Reid Sutherland, a former client, walks in to her life and asks how is that she knew his marriage was not going to work out?

Meg took some liberties with the wedding invitations and added a secret message in the lettering design. The marriage never took place but Meg feels some responsibility and wants to help Reid bounce back. The problem is that Reid has a very stressful job as a quantitative analyst and is just done with NYC and wants to move away but Meg, who is facing a bit of a creative block, devices a plan that will help her seek new designs around town and along the way she’ll show Reid what makes NYC special.

I thought for sure I was going to love this because of the focus on lettering, design and creativity but the two protagonists getting together seemed so forced. I think if you don’t know anything about design (or care to) the beginning of the book especially would be a bit hard to follow. I kept putting this book down and thinking it would get better but ultimately this probably should have been a DNF.