The Little Christmas Library - David M. Barnett - ★★★★.¼

AUTHOR: David M. Barnett

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: October 10, 2024

RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A character-oriented contemporary fiction with a strong Christmas spirit and a dash of Christmas magic. Excellent characters and a well-connected narrative linking them all. True to contemporary times in every way. Might get a bit too sugary, but works well for the genre. A fabulous and heartwarming option for the festive season.

Plot Preview:

When Molly McGinley moves from London to her Northern hometown of Merry-le-Moors, she feels like an utter failure. Ten years in the big city, and all she has to show is a broken relationship and no job. Her widower dad Jack is more than happy to have his daughter home, especially as he is still missing his wife who passed away a decade back. Jack now whiles away his time driving the town’s mobile library and he insists that Molly accompany him on his rounds instead of moping alone at home.

As the two take the library bus to various locations within the small town, we meet many townspeople, whether library patrons or not. We see their frustrations and their struggles, and we learn more about what drives them onward. We also see a threat coming the way of the library, which might throw the new friendships in jeopardy.

The story comes to us from the point of view of an omniscient narrator, with each chapter focussing on one specific character.

Bookish Yays:

📚 The fabulous prologue that gives us a lovely intro to the location of Merry-le-Moors and also offers an excellent glimpse of the attitude of its denizens. What a great way of knowing the setting!

📚 The storyline, which is much more complicated than that cute cover suggests. Though the book is quite heartwarming and humorous, it isn’t the usual light-romance kind of Christmas fare. That’s what makes it stand apart from the clutter of similarly-themed books.

📚 The narration by the apparently omniscient narrator, whose identity we don’t learn for most of the book. The approach gives us a close perspective of various characters, thereby helping us know every character intimately.

📚 Varied characters with varied personalities, thus ensuring a nicely heterogenous crowd in this story. The book is not about any individual character and it is still about all of them. Almost every character deserves a separate Yay, but that would be too many to list out. But I do want to mention Jack, Molly's father. What a wonderful human being! The star of the whole show! 😍

📚 It is fitting that in a book that begins with info about the town, Merry-le-Moors is almost like a character. Its locations as well as its culture and beliefs are as vital to the story as the attitude of its residents.

📚 The mobile library and all things connected to it. Shouldn’t be a surprise that everything bookish is wonderful!

📚 The multitude of themes, thanks to the multi-character arc. The emotions range from happy to sad to infuriating. The story even includes the troubles of a small community such as financial troubles, remoteness, and loneliness. Most of the subplots are handled well. The best is the found-family angle.

📚 The Christmas content is perfect for the season. This is how Christmas stories should be written, focussing more on giving and sharing than on commercialised splurging and partying. The book is festive in spirit than in material things such as decorations and gifts.

📚 I don’t like chapter titles in adult fiction, but this book has some really interesting chapter titles that immediately enhance the reader’s curiosity.

📚 I'll be honest: there were many moments when I could feel my rating slipping. But every single time this happened, the story twisted and brought forth an event that spiked my feelings as well as the rating.

📚 The big reveal. If you read the book, you know what I mean. I didn't see it coming and I loved it!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

📖 While I do love character-oriented fiction, there are too many characters in this book, and it gets tough to keep track of who’s who. My Kindle Search feature was put to a lot of use while reading this novel. If you have the physical or the audio copy, it would be better to take notes on the characters as many pop up randomly throughout the story.

📖 Each chapter comes from a separate character’s perspective. There are some key characters (like Molly and Jack) who get multiple chapters, some characters get at least a few, and a couple of the characters get just one-two chapters. There are even a couple of chapters from canine characters. So you need to be ready for a lot of character-hopping. Thankfully, as the viewpoint changes only with every chapter, it is easy to pay attention to the shift in narration. Going with the flow also helps.

📖 There are a few new romantic relationships in the book. While one of them was almost insta-love (a trope I always hate), it was written well in this book. However, another relationship went into insta territory without even being insta-love – that was awkward to read. There are closed-door intimate scenes, but again, one of them came out of nowhere and didn’t seem plausible. One person’s relationship-related decision towards the end felt out of character. Basically, very mixed feelings about the handling of romance in this novel! On the positive side, the romance doesn’t dominate the core storyline.

📖 The start of the book is slow, partly due to the writing style. It is almost like a raconteurial kind of storytelling, with a cosy casualness to the flow. It took me a while to get used to the style, but once I was accustomed to it, I found the pacing a bit quicker.

Bookish Nays:

📕 While I liked almost all the characters’ stories, one specific character’s arc was very unsatisfactory to me. The turnaround in the person’s behaviour was almost instant and hence unbelievable. It is not that easy to overcome years of conditioning. Plus, the reason for that commitment is never clarified.

All in all, I mostly enjoyed this quaint novel. Combining two favourite topics of readers – Christmas and books – into a character-focussed cosy read isn’t an easy task, but the author handles it well. Certain scenes and event timings might seem too good to be true, and the story also becomes too sappy at times. But this is feel-good fiction after all. Suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.

Definitely recommended to readers of contemporary fiction with a dash of Christmas magic and bookish magic. It would work better for those who enjoy character-oriented narratives.

My thanks to The Book Club Reviewer Group and Orion Publishing Group for providing the DRC of “The Little Christmas Library”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.