The Book Swap is a debut adult romance novel by Tessa Bickers that comes out at the beginning of September.
Still reeling from a recent tragedy, Erin Connolly knows she needs to start living, but has no idea how. When she accidentally donates her favorite book—a heavily annotated copy of To Kill a Mockingbird containing a memento she can’t be without—to a local little community library, she’s devastated. But then the book turns up a week later, back in the library with fresh notes in the margins, along with an invitation in a copy of Great Expectations to meet her newfound pen pal.
A life-changing conversation, written only in the margins of beloved classic books, begins between Erin and her Mystery Man. Following each other through the pages of their favorite novels as the book exchange continues, they both begin to open up, falling into a friendship…and maybe something more.
But Erin and her pen pal have a shared history that neither of them has guessed. Faced with painful reminders of the past—and the one person she swore never to forgive—Erin finds herself at a crossroads. One that could change her life forever.
There were aspects of this book I really liked. The 'co-reading' of books and marking up notes in the margins, the way they both waited (and waited) for a new book to show up. The idea of being able to connect to someone so deeply before you even know who they are, I was excited to see all of that. The hardest part for me was seeing Erin hold a grudge against someone for so long, especially when it could have been an easy conversation. I know teenage girls aren't the most forgiving, but I feel like by 31 Erin could have been more open to the conversations with James about what happened, especially after they both lost a friend.
Erin is definitely stuck in the past, with her holding on so tightly to Bonnie who passed away a few years before the book starts. I think showing the process of loss was really well done, especially to see the the difference between how Erin and James handled it respectively.
That being said, there were a lot of moments in the book that felt like too much, or I had a hard time keeping up with what was happening, which usually isn't a problem for me. It could have been the way the e-arc was formatted, but a lot of times I had trouble figuring out who was speaking and who they were speaking too.
Overall, I liked the idea of the store and the way they slowly learned to forgive themselves and each other. Both of these characters were definitely going through it in some way and they had a lot of growing to do.
I rated this book a 3 out of 5 stars!
It is scheduled to come out September 3, 2024.
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