What Would Life Be Like…?

Thank you to Tandem Literary and Harper Collins for a copy of The Bookseller in exchange for an honest review.  Congratulations to Cynthia Swanson on her debut novel. Any novel that has aspects of a bookstore or the seller sparks my interest.  I hope this one will spark your interest too!  What would happen if you could have taken a different path in your life?  Would anything be missing or different?

Synopsis: 

Katharyn Andersson asks herself this question each time she takes us to Kitty’s life.  Katharyn is married to Lars with three children.  She has a house in a nice neighborhood in Denver. Her parents are there to help out.  In the other world of Kitty she works at a bookstore that she owns with her friend Frieda called Sisters.  Lars never materialized in Kitty’s life.  She has Frieda and her parents, but does she really have them?

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this novel!  I wondered where the plot was going when I read it.  What truly happened to Katharyn? Which world is real?  I didn’t expect the answer at the end of the novel.  The novel was written well! 

One topic that was mentioned in the novel is autism.  I worked with autistic children for a time.  I thought that the author did a great job describing the characteristics of an autistic child.  I remember when beginning work in a special needs classroom; I was told you will encounter two kinds of parents.  One will deny that their child is different.  The second is the parent would feel guilty that the child has autism.  One of the answers to why a parent might feel that way came about in this novel.  I am glad that science and understanding of autism has changed in recent years.

Rating:

4/5

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