Bookshop Girl Book Review

Bookshop Girl by Chloe Coles

From Goodreads: Bennett’s Bookshop has always been a haven for sixteen-year-old Paige Turner. It’s a place where she can escape from her sleepy hometown, hang out with her best friend, Holly, and also earn some money.

But, like so many bookshops, Bennett’s has become a ‘casualty of the high street’ – it’s strapped for cash and going to be torn down. Paige is determined to save it but mobilising a small town like Greysworth is no mean feat.

Time is ticking – but that’s not the only problem Paige has. How is she going to fend off the attractions of beautiful fellow artist, Blaine? And, more importantly, will his anarchist ways make or break her bookshop campaign?

Thank you to Hot Key Books for sending me an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review!

This was a really cute and short read from a wonderful debut author. I managed to read the whole thing in one night [it’s around 180 pages] which came as a relief after the hard slog through The Fates Divide. I loved the premise of a novel about people trying to save a bookshop from closing down, and recognizing the importance of having such stores in society. Bookshop Girl delivered everything I asked for with a good side helping of female friendships and a generous dollop of humour. There were some really interesting points made about other issues, such as catcalling in streets too, which I thought fitted nicely into this little book.

“I might just be the bookshop girl with a bad fringe, who’s using books to jump into other peoples’ lives. Maybe nobody cares what I think, but if there’s a whole group of us, who all stand up against what we think is unfair, then we’ll be impossible to ignore.”

But of course, the majority of the book centres around this plan to keep Bennett’s open. I love how it wasn’t just about Paige and her friend keeping their jobs, but also about keeping an important store in the community. There’s mentions of the local library shortening open hours due to budget cuts too, which probably hammers the realism home to a lot of readers out there. My local library has now been combined with a job centre and a sort of nursery, meaning that there’s lots of people just passing through, sometimes with screaming kids in tow, rather than actually visiting the library, and I’m sure at some stage, someone will notice this and cut out the library entirely. Paige’s and her friends’ sense of humour isn’t always my cup of tea, and I cringed a bit at some of her vocabulary choices, such as when she said she wanted to “love-poach” a boy from her art class, or how her friend Holly declares she’s “in there like swimwear” but for the most part I could definitely relate to Paige’s talent for awkward situations. After all, with a name like Paige Turner, what else could you expect? Honestly though, I burst out laughing when she tries to crawl along the floor to avoid bumping into someone, or how a Lush bath bomb results in her eye going all red and itchy. It’s exactly the kind of awkward situation I would wind up in.

As for the romance, I saw the plot twist coming, and I was actually really glad for it. I won’t go into any spoilers here, since the book hasn’t even been released yet, but I have to say I reached the end of the novel with a certain sense of satisfaction when it came to Paige’s love life. And I was super pleased that, while romance was definitely very present in this book, it didn’t take over, or take away from the message of community and campaigning this book was about.

Overall, I’d give Bookshop Girl a 7.5/10. I loved the message and premise of the book, and I found the awkward situations Paige ends up in totally hilarious, but some of the lines were a bit cringe-worthy and probably intended for a younger YA audience [which as a 23 year old, I’m firmly in the oldie category]. Still, if you love bookshops and activism and a good dash of female friendship thrown in there, this is a book that will be worthy of your shelves.

It’ll be coming out in the UK on the 14th of June. You can preorder copies from Waterstones here, Amazon UK here, and  Book  Depository here. Chloe Coles will also be appearing at YALC convention in London in July, so if you’re looking to get a copy of this signed, or chat with the author, you can buy a ticket for the event here. P.S. She’ll be appearing on the Friday.