In some occasions you see a book floating around for a bit and decide you probably won’t read it as it might not be for you. This was the case for me with The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. I saw this novel being mentioned plenty of times, but I quite ignored it because I didn’t think I would enjoy it at all. However, it happened to be voted as “Book of the Month” in an online book club, so I decided to give it a fair try. The book was for sale anyway, so if I ended up not liking it, I wouldn’t have spent too much money on it was my reasoning. Was this book indeed not for me or have I been fooled by my thoughts and did I actually enjoy this one?

About the book

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
Published by One More Chapter on June 22, 2023
Pages: 437
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical fiction

The Keeper of Stories meets The Lost Apothecary in this evocative and charming novel full of mystery and secrets. 

‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’ 

On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found… 

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives. 

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.

My review

Before reading

In all honesty, I didn’t really know what the book was about before I decided to ignore it. The title didn’t draw my full attention, so I might have checked it out just once but not carefully. Once I learnt that its partially historical fiction told with a dual timeline, I was intrigued some more. This type of books always works well for me, and I typically end up enjoying these. I expected no different for The Lost Bookshop. Moreover, I expected to like the past timeline more than the present day one, which always is the case for me. This book indeed met my expectations, but it unfortunately has some flaws.

Characters

This story is alternately told by Opaline, Martha and henry. We follow them separately, but somehow their stories are linked to one another. Opaline’s story starts in 1921 and ends in the early 1950s. In 1921, she is just about to be married of, something she disagrees with. Opaline decides to take a stance against these old-fashioned ideas and to carve a path out for herself. After travelling around for a bit, she finally settles in Dublin, where she opens her own bookshop. She is a fierce businesswoman who doesn’t let her life be dictated by men. She has an opinion and is not afraid to voice it, despite the consequences. In the present, we both follow Martha and Henry. Martha escapes a toxic relationship and flees to Dublin to start a new life. Henry on the other hand is doing research which brings him to Dublin. When Henry and Martha cross paths, they spend a lot of time together. Personally, I wasn’t too fond of both Henry and Martha. They were written less in depth than Opaline and especially Martha was pretty insecure. This is logical when you take her circumstances into account. She grows exponentially throughout the book, but she just couldn’t convince me. Henry was pretty vague to me as well. I just didn’t really like him, I was more intrigued by Opaline’s story. I think her character is written very well and therefore stands out.

Writing

Despite the fact I’m not convinced by all characters, the book is written fine. It’s easy to read and the chapters are pretty short. It’s heavy on POV switching, but this is necessary to get the whole story. Woods uses a lot of time jumps, especially in Opaline’s POV. This didn’t matter to me as I would also have loved to just read from her POV. There were a lot of stories within the main story, and I wasn’t confused by them either. I think they are executed well too.

Plot

The author addresses many themes in this plotline. For Opaline, the most important one was oppression and pressure. She has been oppressed by men a lot, which is not extremely strange for the time she’s living in. However, she resists and start building a life for herself, not quite unsuccessfully. Oppression is also something Martha faces, whilst pressure applies to Henry. They have their fair share of trouble to deal with. Martha has to find herself again after spending years in a toxic relationship. Henry is pressured by the university to find something useful, otherwise his research funding is cut off. What all characters have in common, are their troubled family dynamics. They haven’t had a stable family when they were young and they have to bare the scars for the rest of their life. Apart from these themes, there was more to this plotline. Unfortunately, not all that intriguing. I think this book excels in addressing important themes, rather than being an intriguing story. As expected, I was most intrigued by the timeline in the past, because this one was more interesting to me. I find Martha’s and Henry’s story lacking depth, whereas Opaline’s storyline provides exactly this. Most events in this book were logical in context of time, but Woods also used magical realism. And that’s exactly something I’m not really a fan of. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Furthermore, the ending was very confusing, I still don’t really know what actually happened. That’s such a pity for an otherwise pretty indulging novel.

Final thoughts

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods was definitely an intriguing read, but with its flaws. These flaws were mostly visible in the present timeline, whereas the timeline in the past was very interesting. I just couldn’t wait to get back to Opaline’s story and would have loved to skip over Martha’s and Henry’s stories as they felt quite out of place for me. I just didn’t care for them as characters, so neither did I for their storyline. Apart from this, I thought the book is written well and excels in addressing important themes. I wasn’t a big fan of the romance aspect here. The novel would have been much better off without it. The ending was very confusing to me, which is a pity. I’m not the biggest fan of magical realism, I’d rather read historical fiction. If you enjoy magical realism, you might enjoy this novel. However, if historical fiction is more your cup of tea, you might have a tougher time with it.