"'Aleisha,' Mukesh said softly. 'Please try to remember that books aren't always an escape; sometimes books teach us things. They show us the world, they don't hide it.'
"That's a proper Atticus Moment, Mukesh, Naina whispers in his ear, louder than ever before" (319)

I needed a night to process my feelings before writing this review. Not entirely, but partially, due to the fact I was sobbing at the end (which was foreshadowed by the sniffly, swelling nose perhaps 3 or 4 times throughout the novel). I've put this book on my To Buy list, but before we go there, I need to state that I really thought of moving it to a 4.5 due to the choice of event that creates the climax. From a narrative standpoint, this makes sense. It allows for one of our characters to turn away from her love of books, which she'd been honing throughout, and does posit legitimate observations around the limitations of our love of literature. Theoretically, it is a valid plot point. However. To see this particular event as merely a "plot point" could be a little challenging. Specifically, I am left to wonder, what are the implications of this death? Was it suicide, or an accident? Could it have been the latter? If the more-likely former, what are we to take away from this? It is redundant naivety to ascribe moral value unto a book, though, in my opinion, as this derives any agency and independent thought of the reader. As such, while I do have challenges, I am going to see this event as a point for question and conversation and not let it deter from the strong emotional pull I felt towards this novel.

Okay. So who is this book for? First, it is for those who have read the canon or at least have peripheral cultural knowledge. Specifically, To Kill a Mockingbird, Rebecca, The Kite Runner, Life of Pi, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Beloved, A Suitable Boy. Before you say anything, might I add that one of the characters we follow, who reads this list, is a male? Just putting that there, in case the list dissuades you. If you enjoyed Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop, I feel like you'd like this, as well. 

So. Aleisha is a 17-year old working at a library, who's there to work and not because she loves books.
Mukesh is an elderly widower, who also is not a reader. But his late wife was, as well as his granddaughter and the people around him. He ends up reading The Time Traveler's Wife and feels so close to his late wife, that he goes to the library and asks for similar titles. Aleisha had stumbled upon the Reading List, and provides the first book off that list. He reads it, and she reads it, and they end up talking about it. This continues through the list, until something happens. What any booklover will adore, then, is not only the community fostered through literature, but how Mukesh and Aleisha to explore their own realities through literature - like seeing Manderly in their neighborhoods, having Atticus Finchean moments.

Leonora, a divorcee who finds her way to the library: "She had read some of these already, including TO Kill a Mockingbird, when she was a teenager. She didn't remember the story, she was terrible with details, bu she remembered the way it made her feel. It had this kind of warm, magical quality about it. The title Brought memories of eating breakfast outside on a wooden bench - and it was so long ago she couldn't recall whether the memory was her own or a scene from the book itself" (p. 99) 

"Mukesh picked his plate up and scraped the leftovers into the bin. He could feel Mrs. Danvers following him every way as he stormed out of the hall, then out of the mandir into the open air of Neasden. He pulled the book out of his tote bag. Rebecca. For a moment, he thought the name Naina was emblazoned on the front instead. What was this book doing to him?" (151)

Aleisha: "'Mum, sit down,' Aleisha rested a hand on her mother's shoulder. She could feel herself stepping into someone else's skin for this moment. Atticus- wise, imposing. Nothing would faze him. Jo March, the moment she learns Beth is gone - broken, angry. Pi, realizing he'd lost his whole family and had nothing but a tiger, which could turn on him at any moment, for company - all adrift. Nothing was quite right" (297)