★★★★☆ Nina's Life becomes less bookish

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Abbi Waxman

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill recounts thirty days in the life of Nina Hill, one chapter at a time. Nina is a bookish person -- she works in a bookstore, runs several book clubs, and knows books. Fans of children's and young adult literature will recognize many of the authors Nina loves and will be tempted to look up those they don't recognize. (I speak for myself here.)

The publisher's blurb is a fairly good summary of the plot, so I will not bother with that. The only thing I don't like about the blurb is this paragraph

It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.

The publishers seem to be suggesting that there is something wrong with Nina's "shell", as they call it, that it is to her benefit to come out of it, and that the events that force her to turn a fresh page are for the better. That was not my take at all.

The title, "The Bookish Life of Nina Hill" is misleading, in the sense that the life described in these thirty chapters is not bookish at all. Nina undoubtedly HAD a bookish life before the events here described. One hopes that she may eventually be able to have a bookish life again -- to retreat back into what the publishers call her comfortable shell. But one senses that that may not be possible -- that thirty years from now Nina may refer to this time as "the summer when everything changed". I hope not.

I'm not giving a good sense of the book. Nina is a delightful person to spend time with. She's smart and funny. For instance, here are some thoughts of Nina's early in the book, on arriving at her home

Her cat, Phil, was sitting on the gate waiting for her. Phil was a tabby of the brown and cream variety, with a black tip to his tail and white feet. He jumped down as the gate opened and preceded her up the stairs, the tip of his tail forming a jaunty accent like the marker flag on a toddler’s bicycle. Nina noticed he’d left a large but very dead worm on the doormat. He stood next to it casually, like, oh yeah, I’d almost forgotten, I brought you a worm. Nothing special, just a deadly worm I captured with my own paws and brought back for you. Thought you might fancy a little smackerel of something after work, you know. (He was apparently channeling Pooh Bear.)

There's something like that on almost every page. Some of the other characters are almost as much fun as Nina.

So, fun book. If YOU are a bookish person, you will probably enjoy The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.

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