A.J. Fikry is a 39-year-old, widowed, and bitter bookseller who isolates himself after his wife dies. Then, his most valuable possession, a rare and valuable book, is stolen. And after that, a two-year-old girl named Maya is abandoned inside his bookstore. And this, of course, turns his whole life around. It’s a somewhat cute, and feel-good premise, but for some reason, it didn’t quite land for me as a story.
It felt almost too contrived, like someone was trying very deliberately to craft a grumpy-guy-becomes-loving recipe: take one angry bookseller, ruin everything in his life, toss in a cute kid, and presto, everyone is happy. It wasn’t a bad book, but the characters didn’t feel believeable to me, and ultimately, I found it fairly forgettable.
