The Lending Library by Aliza Fogelson

 The best thing I can say about this book is that it is a quick read.  Even with my poor levels of concentration I managed to plough through in a couple of days.  Admittedly, this is probably because I just wanted to get it finished and likely didn't really read the last 50% of the book but just skimmed through it in an attempt to get i over and done with.

The book does start out very promisingly with the whole shtick that the local Library is closing - not for good please note but for renovations - and the local art teacher, Dodie, is really upset by this so decides to put her house to good use and set up her own Lending Library.  The main focus of the first bits of the book focus solely on this and it does give a great foil for introducing characters and explaining the life of this small town.  I will readily admit I enjoyed these opening chapters and was with it all the way as a bit of lighthearted froth.  The appearence of the "Love Interest" made me squirm a bit as I could already tell that the Author's writing style would make the relationship very overblown but I went with it.

Sadly, it just falls off the end of the cliff with a sudden plethora of plot lines being thrown in to the mix.  It gives off the impression that there were two books the author had got to draft stage and the publishers would only take one off her hands so she made the bizarre decision to merge them in to one.  I got Jodi Picoult vibes off the second book that got merged in, sadly the emotional intelligence just isn't there so it just feels unnecessarily voyeuristic and unpleasant.

None of this is helped by the character development of Dodie.  She goes from seemingly relatively normal to this absolute paragon of achievement.  No matter what she wants she will get it and it will all come so relatively easily, even if she has to trample everyone else to get her way.

Started off fairly well but soon detriorated in to a bit of a mess.  In all honesty reads more like a book aimed at teenagers than adults with it's unrealistic depictions of life and emotions.

This review has been a long time coming.  I actually read this book between the 16th and 17th June 2020 so my memory is a bit foggy about all the plot lines.  Fortunately, I have a notebook where I jot some initial thoughts on the book and an overall ranking so between the book blurb and that I did have a reasonable handle on what I thought at the time of reading.