Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

There are some aspects of this book that I loved, and some that really disappointed me. On the plus side, there is the setting, a quirky bookstore on an island off Cape Cod. It's run by a curmudgeonly widower, the titular A.J. Fikry, and he is joined by a supporting cast of quirky characters whom I would be happy to get to know better.

The best part of the book has to do with Fikry's relationship with a publisher's sales rep, new to the job as the book opens, who periodically visits the island to try to convince him to order titles from her company's catalogue. They are both quick-witted, and their relationship is sweet and marked by charming banter.

This is all good. Indeed, I could have spent a twelve-book series in this store and with these people, slowly watching their lives unfold over author events and the small dramas and mysteries of life. Alas, the story I would have enjoyed across 3000 pages is served to us in fewer than 300.

There are parts of the book where we skip ahead years, as if the whole life of this A.J. Fikry simply must be shoehorned into the space of a single book. I hate this. For one thing, I find it depressing when whole years flash by with the turn of a page. But I also feel that these jumps forward in time distance us from the characters.

The child we're getting to know at 5 is in high school a page or two later, and now we don't know her at all. And I really don't think there's any advantage to this approach, to our being shown so long a stretch of our characters' lives. A sliver of that time, delivered unrushed, would have been far sweeter.