About:
The Little Village of Book Lovers by Nina George is a magical realism novel taking place in the 1960s, France. Ms. George is an award-winning German author, who has more than 25 published books under her belt.
- 272 pages
- Publisher : Ballantine Books
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 0593157885
My rating for The Little Village of Book Lovers – 3
Buy The Little Village of Book Lovers from Amazon.com*
More Books by Nina George*
Thoughts:
I’m a sucker for books about books, but it took me almost half the novel to get into this story. Even though I have enjoyed magical realism before, this one didn’t work for me, and I found the non-magical aspects of the story much more engaging.
The Little Village of Book Lovers by Nina George could have been a fantastic short story. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of fluff in it which was supposed to be profound but took me out of the narrative I enjoyed.
The characters are all written very well and grow within this short story. To me, that showed how good of an author Ms. George is. I enjoyed Marie-Jeanne’s “superpower” of seeing when a person is in love. The little matchmaker was endearing and worked wonderfully with her using books to bring people together.
I really wish that the musings of Love, Logic, Fate, an olive tree, and Death would have been less, or altogether gone. It would have been a wonderful novel, full of wonderful people, locations and books. In fact, it could probably have been twice the size, and twice as enjoyable employing just those aspects of the narrative.
Bottom line, I enjoyed immensely half the book which talked about the small village and didn’t really care for the spiritual part. I though the attempt to juggle these two worlds left little room for any plot, and the conflicting life of its main character. The novel ended in a hurry, and I think many readers would miss its most important point about Marie-Jeanne’s life.
Synopsis:
Love, a magical entity, visits a small village in France in the 1960s. Love gets attached to a baby orphan, Marie-Jeanne, and their destinies are forever linked.
As Marie-Jeanne gets older, she realizes she can see the marks Love left on people as glowing lights on their bodies and begins playing matchmaker. As she grows up, she helps Francis, her father, begin a mobile library which is also used to bring soulmates together.
Buy The Little Village of Book Lovers from Amazon.com*
More Books by Nina George*
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer:I got this book for free.
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account, the money is usually spent on books
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