THE SUNDAY REVIEW: THE LIBRARY OF UNREQUITED LOVE – SOPHIE DIVRY

One morning a librarian finds a reader who has been locked in overnight.

She starts to talk to him, a one-way conversation that soon gathers pace as an outpouring of frustrations, observations and anguishes. Two things shine through: her shy, unrequited passion for a quiet researcher named Martin, and an ardent and absolute love of books.

A delightful flight of fancy for the lonely bookworm in all of us… – Goodreads

I selected this slim volume to read as part of my readathon, for obvious reasons. I also thought it would be a good follow-up to The Uncommon Reader, which had got me into reading books about readers in a big way. 

What I didn’t realize until I started reading was that this is a soliloquy. Not only that, but it’s basically one long, ranting, opinionated whining session. Another case (one of several lately) of not really liking the protagonist much. She comes across as snooty, bitter and thinking she’s better than everyone else around her. 

I got through this book simply because it was so short, and I have to say that I didn’t enjoy it. This was not a character whose head I wanted to spend time in. I felt like I was being lectured by a very shrill history teacher. 

The book consists of a librarian talking to a library patron who she discovers has been locked in her section overnight (I’m not clear on exactly how this happened or why the guy can’t just go when she gets there, but whatever). She spent half the book complaining about how she didn’t get to work in one of the good departments of the library and the other half going on about random historical events, how the dewey decimal system is sacred and how the young man who comes in to do research has a nice neck. Which was also kind of creepy because I pictured her as middle-aged. 

By the end of the book I think I was more relieved than the poor locked-in library patron that the library was opening and the monologue could end. So unfortunately this book won’t be going on my recommendation list.

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