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A review by niamhreviews
The Bookshop Woman: The Smash-Hit Japanese Bestseller by Nanako Hanada
2.0
I was very kindly given an e-arc of this book via Netgalley and Octopus Books.
'The Bookshop Woman' is nonfiction that reads like fiction and really, that's not a compliment. I don't know whether something got lost in translation or whether the people this woman met during her time on this website were just genuinely the worst people in the world - but I was so bored. This is such a dull book. It also dissolves into conversations about sex horrifically quickly. If you're looking - like me - to pick up this book because it promises a 'love story with books', you're going to be disappointed. The book conversation makes up less than 10% of this book and the rest is about the author having an existential and work crisis at the same time and the overly long, sprawling conversations she has with strangers, many of whom appear to just want to fuck her. It's a surface level book that never wants to go deeper than what's on page.
'The Bookshop Woman' is nonfiction that reads like fiction and really, that's not a compliment. I don't know whether something got lost in translation or whether the people this woman met during her time on this website were just genuinely the worst people in the world - but I was so bored. This is such a dull book. It also dissolves into conversations about sex horrifically quickly. If you're looking - like me - to pick up this book because it promises a 'love story with books', you're going to be disappointed. The book conversation makes up less than 10% of this book and the rest is about the author having an existential and work crisis at the same time and the overly long, sprawling conversations she has with strangers, many of whom appear to just want to fuck her. It's a surface level book that never wants to go deeper than what's on page.